Rooted Leader: Kaile
Youth and Healthy Relationships
How can I help spread education about healthy relationships with teens in South Pasadena?
Kaile used this question to guide her towards her idea of developing a club at her high school that will provide a space for students to have discussions to better understand what healthy relationships look like.
“I want to help build a community that focuses on teaching people how to end violence rather than how to avoid becoming a victim. ”
KEY STAKEHOLDERS
Constituents: Teens ages 13-18 at Kaile’s High School
Kaile identified friends and peers as constituents who would benefit the most from the youth-led space she is developing. She is planning to start a club at her school in the next academic year that will help teens understand what healthy relationships looks like, and she is learning directly from her peers to gain some ideas on how the club will be structured.
Allies: Teachers and Local Nonprofit Organizations
Kaile aims to build relationships with local organizations like CPAF to be guest speakers that can share knowledge and facilitate discussions about healthy relationships with the teens at her high school. Kaile will also need to find a teacher supervisor whose values are aligned with the vision of the healthy relationships club she wants to start.
Decision Makers: Activities Director & Commissioner of Clubs The Activities Director is an adult at the high school who provides oversight of all student clubs and activities. The Commissioner of Clubs is a student-held position that supports the Activities Director in promoting club activities on campus. Kaile is preparing a clear vision for her club that she can communicate and present to these two decision makers so that she can hopefully begin activities next Fall!
Figure 1. “About 1 in 5 women and 1 in 7 men experience severe intimate partner physical violence.” When I first saw these stats I was shocked and disturbed by the scope of the problem. This was the moment in which I realized I wanted to help educate youth about relationships to hopefully prevent further harm.
Figure 5. These are the steps outlined by my school that I need to follow to develop the youth group. We’ll have a dry-run of the youth group over the summer with some of my friends so that we can brainstorm more ideas for what our club is going to look like.
Figure 2. “I am.” We wrote down values and traits that define us during a workshop that really stuck with me from the first Know Your Roots program that I attended. I realized that there was so much more to me than my social identities. I thought deeper about my personal traits and got to know myself better. This showed me that your relationship with yourself is just as important if not more important than your relationship with others.
Figure 3. I was relieved to discover that students at my high school were eager to learn about relationships. Though some topics didn’t pique their interests, I’m thankful for the input, which shows that there are going to be a lot of great topics to explore under the umbrella of healthy relationships.
Figure 4. An organization that inspired me was The National Alliance to End Sexual Violence. They teach about federal laws and appropriations that impact the fight to end sexual violence. Educating about government involvement is something I would like to integrate into my youth group.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Kaile has outlined specific ways that youth and adults can help promote healthy relationships at her school to help end violence.
1. Provide the opportunity for every student at my high school to receive education about healthy relationships. I want to make this happen by creating a club to have ongoing dialogue about all the different topics within healthy relationships, as well as to address current events in the school or community.
2. Provide a space for people to think about what a healthy relationship with themselves looks like, in addition to having healthy relationships with others.
3. I’ll start a dry-run of the youth group over the summer to practice and get feedback about the experience. Using this feedback, we’ll try to launch the youth group as a school club in Fall of 2021.
4. Adults need to be more open about discussing healthy relationships- rather than having it be a taboo or uncomfortable topic to talk about at school.
5. Adults should not assume that we already know enough about healthy relationships. We need their support to offer education, resources, and safe spaces to discuss this topic.
6. We need more adults that youth can talk to about topics like healthy relationships. I have adults that I am very comfortable with and can go to for advice- I always know that I can talk to them.
7. Teens and adults can work together to talk and spread awareness about healthy vs. unhealthy relationships, sexual harassment, and other forms of relationship violence. (Update: Kaile has since been featured in The California Health Report along with other teens working to end relationship violence.)