SAFE-T Program

Teacher’s Guide Overview

Prevent Child Abuse Vermont

PO Box 829 * Montpelier, VT 05601

Phone: 802-229-5724

1-800-CHILDREN (1-800-244-5373)

FAX: 802-223-5567

Website:

SAFE-T Program Teacher’s Guide

Overview

Unit 1 First Things First: Support Systems

Establishing group trust and process. Protective Factors: personal and social responsibility, trust, and support systems. Risk Factor: isolation .

Unit 2 You, Me, Us: Self-Awareness, Self-Esteem and Empathy

Teaching behavior is the physical expression of thoughts and feelings. Protective Factors: Empathy, healthy coping skill, high self-esteem, self-awareness. Risk Factors: unhealthy coping skills, low self-esteem.

UNIT3Yes, No, Maybe:Communication Skills for Healthy Relationships

Practice with clear and respectful communication. Protective Factors: assertiveness, asking honestly, saying no clearly, and taking no for an answer. Risk Factors: passive, aggressive, manipulative communication styles and drug and alcohol use.

Unit 4 Starting the Conversation:Healthy Sexuality and Relationships

Understanding sexuality including a healthy consideration of the whole person and gender. Protective Factors: information, values, nurturing sexual expression, peer pressure. Risk Factors: silence, misinformation, hurtful sexual expression and peer pressure.

Unit 5 Roles and Rehearsals: Sex Roles, Stereotypes and the Media

Questioning inaccurate, negative and frequently violent messages in our culture about sexuality. Protective Factors: respect, equality. Risk Factors: stereotyping , domination, exploitation, prejudice.

Unit 6 Rights and Responsibilities: Power and Consent

Considering the role of power in relationships including an understanding of consent. Protective factors: healthy use of power, consent. Risk Factors: power abuses, assault.

Unit 7 Putting the Pieces Together: How Does Sexual Abuse Happen?

Defining Sexual Abuse considering video taped scenarios of harassment and abuse. Protective Factors: facts about abuse, resources. Risk Factors: myths, denial of abuse.

Unit 8 Empowering Ourselves & Others: Survival, Protection & Healing

Breaking the silence surrounding sexual violence, studying the words of survivors and considering the convergence of the legal system and sexual abuse. Protective Factors. Self andpeer protection, early intervention, healing, reporting. Risk Factors: History of abuse.

Unit 9 Teens at Risk: Risk Factors for Sexual Offending

Considering typical teen thinking errors used to avoid personal responsibility and everyone has a role to play in preventing sexual abuse. Protective Factors: Honesty, treatment.. Risk Factors: blaming others, excusing, minimizing, justifying, assuming, and playing victim.

Unit 10 Responsibility and Decisions: Teens Making Changes

Students undertake a personal change project to better develop a prevention skill in themselves and a social change project to effect change in their peer culture and social environment.

October 2004

Outline of the Teacher’s Guide to the SAFE-TT Program

Unit / Objectives / Prevention Skills / Risk Factors / VT Standards
One /
  • Create a safe space where confidentiality and individual thoughts and feelings are respected.
  • Begin to develop a sense of trust in the group.
  • Understand the purpose of the course and what will be expected of students.
  • Recognize the people and agencies in their personal, school and community support systems.
  • Understand that all school personnel are mandated reporters, and by law must report any suspicion of child abuse, including sexual abuse.
  • Explore the topic of teen sexuality.
  • Discuss support systems and teen sexuality with a parent or other trusted adult.
/ Responsibility:
personal and social
Support Systems
Trust / Isolation / 1.15
Speaking
2.3 Types of Problems
3.3 Respect
3.13 Roles and Responsibilities
Two /
  • Become aware of a variety of feelings in self and others.
  • Recognize the importance of feelings and expressing them in healthy ways.
  • Understand the meaning of empathy and its importance in human relations.
  • Practice showing empathy for others with a parent/guardian or
other trusted adult.
  • Learn what self-esteem is and what influences it.
  • Explore how self-esteem impacts our behavior, relationships and
  • social environments.
  • Understand how feelings and thought impact behavior.
  • Learn to change behavior by changing thoughts.
/ Healthy Coping
Empathy
High Self-Esteem
Self-Awareness / Unhealthy Coping
Low Self-Esteem / 1.15
Speaking
2.7 Information
3.3 Respect
3.5 Healthy Choices
3.11 Interactions
3.13 Roles and Responsibilities

Outline of the Teacher’s Guide to the SAFE-T Program

Unit / Objectives / Prevention Skills / Risk Factors /

VT Standards

Three /
  • Understand that good communication is essential for healthy relationships.
  • Understand the role self-awareness plays in good communication.
  • Explore 4 basic styles of communication: passive, assertive, aggressive, manipulative, including their consequences and effectiveness.
  • Explore cultural and situational barriers to effective communication.
  • Practice making assertive requests in a variety of situations.
  • Understand that taking without asking is aggressive.
  • Practice effective refusal techniques in a variety of situations.
  • Practice accepting ‘no’ in a variety of situations.
/ Assertive
Asking Honestly
Saying No
Taking No For
an Answer / Passive
Aggressive
Manipulative
Drug & Alcohol Use / 1.15
Speaking
2.3 Types of Problems
2.8 Taking Risks
3.3 Respect
3.5 Healthy Choices
3.7 Informed Decisions
Four /
  • Understand what sexuality is.
  • Understand that our discomfort in communicating about sexuality can lead us to express it in unhealthy and unsafe ways.
  • Learn to communicate more clearly and comfortably about sexuality.
  • Explore their sexual values with a parent, guardian or other trusted adult.
  • Explore a variety of teen relationships and feelings related to them.
  • Learn to differentiate between nurturing and hurtful expressions of caring, attraction and intimacy.
  • Recognize the importance of making healthy, responsible choices about sexual expression.
  • Learn to predict situations where teens might be pressured to make decisions they are not ready for.
/ Information
Values
Peer Pressure
Nurturing Sexual Expression
(Flirting)
Peer Pressure / Silence
Mis-information
Hurtful Sexual
Expression
(Harassment)
Peer Protection / 2.3 Types of Problems
2.8 Taking Risks
3.3 Respect
3.4 Development
3.5 Healthy Choices
\
3.11 Interactions
3.13 Roles and Responsibilities
4.5 Continuity and Change

Outline of the Teacher’s Guide to the SAFE-T Program

Unit / Objectives / Prevention Skills / Risk Factors /

VT Standards

Five /
  • Increase understanding of one’s own and the opposite gender.
  • Define sex role stereotypes.
  • Identify sex role stereotypes and other negative and violent sexual messages and pressures.
  • Understand the impact of stereotypes and peer pressure, including the pressure to be sexual, exploitive and/or exploited.
  • Identify possible solutions to the impact of negative and violent sexual messages and pressures.
  • Recognize the potential relationship between stereotyping and harmful behaviors.
  • Experience cooperative resistance to negative sexual pressures.
/ Respect
Equality / Stereotype
Domination
Exploitation
Prejudice / 1.15Speaking
2.7 Information
2.8 Taking Risks
3.3 Respect
3.7 Informed Decisions
4.4 Effects of Prejudice
5.12 Responding to Media
Six /
  • Understand the different forms power takes and the role it plays in various relationships.
  • Distinguish between the responsible, healthy use of power and the abuse of power.
  • Understand that power is an important responsibility that should not be misused.
  • Understand the meaning of consent and its importance to healthy relationships.
  • Experience what consent feels like.
  • Explore how a power imbalance in relationships can interfere with consent.
  • Understand that assault is an abuse of power which violates the
victim’s right to consent and can have serious emotional, and
physical and legal consequences. / Power –
healthy use
Consent / Power - abuse
Assault / 1.15 Speaking
2.3 Types of Problems
2.7 Information
3.3 Respect
3.5 Healthy Choices
3.7 Informed Decisions
3.11 Interactions
3.13 Roles and Responsibility
4.4 Effects of Prejudice

Outline of the Teacher’s Guide to the SAFE-T Program

Unit / Objectives / Prevention Skills / Risk Factors /

VT Standards

Seven /
  • Define sexual abuse.
  • Understand that sexual abuse happens when healthy relationships break down and risk factors are high.
  • Counter common myths about the incidence of sexual abuse and about victims and offenders with facts.
  • Understand the consequences abusive sexual behaviors have for victims and communities.
  • Explore why sexual harassment is so common.
  • Understand why environmental factors such as denial, fear, the linking of sex and violence may contribute to sexual abuse.
  • Understand what date rape/assault is and how it happens.
  • Understand that alcohol and drugs impair consent and play a large role in sexual abuse in teen relationships.
/ Facts About Abuse
Resources / Myths About Abuse
Denial / 2.3 Types of
Problems
2.8 Taking Risks
3.3 Respect
3.5 Healthy Choices
3.13 Roles and Responsibilities
4.4 Effects of Prejudice
4.5 Continuity and Change
Eight /
  • Identify risks for victimization.
  • Identify and practice self-protection techniques.
  • Develop empathy for victims.
  • Understand the consequences of sexual abuse for victims, as well as for their friends, families and their communities.
  • Recognize the tremendous capacity for survivors to heal and gain new strengths, especially with help.
  • Become aware of the community supports and legal processes that may occur when abuse is reported.
  • Identify and practice ways to support victims and prevent abuse.
/ Self – Protection
Healing
Reporting
Early Intervention
New Strengths
Empowerment / Prior Abuse
(that was not reported, believed and/or healed) / 2.3 Types of
Problems
2.8 Taking Risks
2.9 Persevering
3.3 Respect
3.5 Healthy Choices
3.11 Interactions
3.13 Roles and Responsibilities
4.1 Service
4.5 Continuity and Change

Outline of the Teacher’s Guide to the SAFE-T Program

Unit / Objectives / Prevention Skills / Risk Factors / VT Standards
Nine /
  • Become aware of thinking errors and how to counteract these to be able to take responsibility for one’s actions.
  • Recognize thinking patterns placing us at risk for sexual offending.
  • Identify factors in the social environment, in peer groups and in ourselves that increase the potential for sexually abusive behavior.
  • Understand how an adolescent may sexually abuse others and how to prevent oneself from engaging in the same behavior.
  • Explore the legal consequences of sexual abuse for juveniles.
  • Become familiar with resources available to teens at risk for sexually abusing others.
  • Understand that teens who abuse others can change and learn to have healthy, abuse-free sexualities and relationships.
/ Honesty
Treatment / Thinking Errors
Trouble Relating to Peers
Addiction
Family Patterns / 2.3 Types of
Problems
2.9 Persevering
3.3 Respect
3.5 Healthy Choices
3.11 Interactions
3.13 Roles and Responsibilities
4.5 Continuity and Change
Ten /
  • Recognize that everyone has a role to play in preventing sexual abuse and promoting healthy relationships.
  • Recognize the larger impact of their actions, or the ‘ripple effect’.
  • Make changes in their own behaviors, especially those which are assaultive or precursory, or which put them at risk for being hurt or assaulted.
  • Effect changes in their peer culture and social environment which help make their school sex abuse free.
  • Present and celebrate their efforts to create a Sexual Abuse Free Environment for Teens.
/ Action! / 1.15 Speaking
2.7 Information
2.14 Planning and Organizing
3.7 Informed Decisions
3.11 Interactions
3.13 Roles and Responsibilities
3.14 Dependability, productivity and Initiative
4.1 Service
4.5 Continuity and Change