The Public Education Program builds community capacity to address, prevent, and to supportively respond to those impacted by sexual violence.
Year after year, the Public Education Program empowers individuals and communities to take action against sexual violence and to support those who have been impacted. Our presentations, workshops, online courses, and attendance at community events are all geared toward this goal. By providing accurate, non-victim blaming information about sexual violence and its impacts, the public education team works to undo the normalization of sexual violence in our community and leave in its place a culture of consent.
Throughout the past year, the Public Education Program was exceptionally busy facilitating in-person and virtual education sessions, participating in community events, providing community consultations, and developing new education resources.
Youth and Adult Education
In total, our public education team facilitated 552 presentations for 23,768 unique participants this year. These presentations included sessions that were uniquely tailored to meet the needs of various professionals across Edmonton organizations, including medical, legal, military, and social support professionals. A significant number of public education participants each year are youth, and this year was no different: over 20,000 youth participated in our sessions. Many of these youth were junior and senior high school students in Edmonton schools, but we also facilitated education sessions for students in many surrounding communities, as well as youth accessing support services through community agencies.
Our team developed a number of new education sessions to address the unique needs of specific demographics and communities. This included a session for service providers working with seniors and older adults, as well as a multi-part series for Indigenous youth, which was developed with the help of the SACE Indigenous Liaison. We also created and facilitated a presentation for newcomers on healthy relationships and boundaries, and a workshop for members of the Student Senate at W.P. Wagner School that supported youth in their efforts to address sexual violence in their school community.
Some of the organizations we supported:
– Youth public education participant
“I learned that gender stereotypes can really harm people.”
– Youth public education participant
– Adult professional public education participant
– Adult professional public education participant
– Adult professional public education participant
– University fraternity public education participant
– Public education participant
WiseGuyz
This year SACE WiseGuyz Public Educators created a new, two-part workshop to engage Grade 8 and 9 students in sexual violence prevention. This workshop, entitled Gender Stereotypes and Sexual Violence, explores intersections between gender stereotypes, consent, and sexual violence, and it supports students in identifying the attitudes and beliefs that uphold sexually violent behaviours. Students also learn how to intervene safely in sexual violence, and practice consent communication in different types of relationships.
On top of creating and delivering this workshop, the WiseGuyz team facilitated seven successful full-year programs, engaging 84 boys and masculine youth in five Edmonton schools in healthy relationships education. Alongside this success, the WiseGuyz team noticed trends of harmful behaviour amongst some students. One emerging trend is harmful behaviour around Nazism, with some students frequently referencing Nazi memes circulating on social media. The WiseGuyz team has consulted with a deradicalization organization to address this highly concerning trend. Another emerging trend is that some boys enrolled in the program have disclosed that they caused harm with sexual violence. In these situations, the WiseGuyz team has consulted with both SACE clinicians and school staff to ensure SACE is maintaining high standards of reporting and safety while providing these boys effective consent education so they can unlearn internalized myths around sexual violence.
Beyond that, one of our WiseGuyz educators is continuing to develop and coordinate a three-session workshop for fraternities on masculinity, sexual violence, and consent, and facilitated a presentation on this topic to a University of Alberta fraternity in spring 2023.
Overall, SACE is constantly working to expand the WiseGuyz program by maintaining continuous programming with current partner schools, expanding into our waitlist as capacity allows, and by implementing other creative strategies for growth. Some creative ideas implemented include a SACE-branded WiseGuyz brochure, as well as an email campaign for schools, organizations and parents to advocate for more funding from local government officials.
Your donations help SACE offer no-fee services and support to thousands of individuals affected by sexual violence in Edmonton every year.