Safeteen gets 4.5 STARS on the UBC Best Practices Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Resource List

Safeteen is passionate about social justice and empowering youth with skills for self-regulation, building healthy boundaries, and authentically connecting from a place of inner wisdom and truth.


See how Safeteen meets the following BC Physical & Health Education Learning Standards

Grades 7-10

Big Ideas (Understand)

  • We experience many changes in our lives that influence how we see ourselves and others. Grade 7
    • Safeteen brings a social justice perspective including race, class, gender, mental and physical ability.
    • Safeteen facilitators open conversations for students to contribute their experiences providing other students with different perspectives and opportunities for building empathy for themselves and others.
    • Safeteen offers an understanding of how power impacts relationship dynamics.
    • Safeteen helps students identify the difference between power over and authentic power that comes from within. 
  • Learning about similarities and differences in individuals and groups influences community health. Grade 7
    • Students participate in sociometry exercises that highlight shared similarities and differences.
    • Safeteen helps youth evolve out of gender stereotypes, which so often result in harmful behaviours towards ourselves and others.
  • Healthy choices influence our physical, emotional, and mental well-being. Grades 7, 8, 9, 10
    • Safeteen facilitates exercises and discussions with students both in large and small groups on how media, social media, gender stereotypes effect body image and self concept and how that effects healthy choices in relationships with ourselves and others.
    • Safeteen illuminates the concept of self-care, providing students with an opportunity to identify and share their own self-care practices and recognize them as healthy outlets for emotional stress.
    • Safeteen provides a mindfulness practice to help students identify positive and harmful thinking and provides them with practices to counter negative habitual thought patterns.
    • Safeteen encourages students to identify what they are passionate about and to do the things they love regardless of what others think.
    • Safeteen illuminates the concept of core-self and teaches students to cultivate their essential selves, what is important to them, regardless of social pressures.
  • Healthy relationships can help us lead rewarding and fulfilling lives. Grades 8, 9, 10
    • Safeteen demonstrates the key aspects of healthy relationships, helping them identify warning signs and abusive patterns with self and others.
    • Safeteen discusses how surrounding ourselves with people we trust and having healthy relationships is important for our physical, emotional and mental well-being.
  • Advocating for the health and well-being of others connects us to our community. Grades 8, 9, 10
    • Safeteen offers skills for cultivating empathy, skills for standing up for others.
    • Safeteen discusses how individual actions can be either supportive or harmful to community.

Curricular Competency learning standards (Do)

Physical Literacy

  • Develop and demonstrate safety, fair play, and leadership in physical activities. Grades 7, 8, 9, 10
    • Students participate in sociometry exercises, role-plays, verbal and physical boundary exercises in both large group and small groups.
    • Students practice and demonstrate body language communication in conjunction with assertiveness verbal skills.
    • Students learn, discuss and practice physical self-defense skills. Female-identified workshops only

Social & Community Health

  • Identify, describe and propose strategies for avoiding and/or responding to potentially unsafe, abusive, or exploitive situations. Grades 7, 8, 9, 10
    • Through discussion, demonstration and role-plays students learn how to identify unsafe, abusive or exploitive situation.
    • Through discussion, demonstration and role-plays students learn skills to deescalate situations that pose potential threat to their physical, emotional or mental well-being through non-violent communication, body language and verbal skills.
  • Describe, assess and analyze strategies for responding to discrimination, stereotyping, and bullying. Grades 7, 8, 9, 10
    • Safeteen brings a social justice perspective including race, class, gender, homophobia, bullying, mental and physical ability.
    • Through discussion and demonstration, students identify discrimination, stereotyping and bullying and are provided with opportunities to practice skills through role-plays for managing specific real life situations.
  • Describe, apply and propose strategies for developing and maintaining healthy relationships. Grades 7, 8, 9, 10
    • Through discussion, demonstration and role-plays students learn how to identify unhealthy relationships and are offered skills to become aware of and practice effective communication of their boundaries.
    • Students participate in exercises to recognize, honour and communicate their boundaries using non-reactive and assertive; verbal and body language skills.
    • Safeteen discusses how surrounding ourselves with people we trust, feel safe and have healthy relationships with is important for our physical, emotional and mental well-being.

Mental Well-Being

  • Explore the impact of transition and change on identities. Grade 7
    • Students participate in discussions and experiential exercises addressing the physical and emotional transitions of puberty, and how they have a tremendous impact on body image and identity.
  • Describe, assess and analyze strategies for promoting mental well-being, for self and others. Grades 7, 8, 9, 10
    • Students are provided with awareness and critical thinking skills to manage media, peer influence, and their own critical thought processes.
    • Students participate in exercises for building inner-strength and cultivating a strong sense of self; thereby being less likely to bully or be bullied.
  • Describe, assess and evaluate strategies for managing problems related to mental well-being and substance use, for others. Grades 7, 8, 9, 10
    • Safeteen offers the opportunity to identify boundaries in relationships with others.
    • Through discussion, demonstration and role-plays students practice asserting boundaries with a strong focus on refusal skills, which can be applied to substance use, sexual boundaries and peer pressure.
  • Create, assess and evaluate strategies for managing physical, emotional, and social changes during puberty and adolescence. Grades 7, 8, 9, 10
    • Through group discussion students are provided with awareness and critical thinking skills to manage media, peer influence, body image, and their own critical thought processes.
    • Students participate in discussions and experiential exercises addressing the physical and emotional transitions of puberty, and how they have a tremendous impact on body image and identity.
  • Explore and describe factors that shape personal identities, including social and cultural factors. Grades 8, 9, 10
    • Safeteen teaches students how to identify their own personal truth and to speak up and stand up for what they believe in. Skills are applied to media, social-media, peers and family of origin.

Content learning standards (Know)

  • Practices that reduce the risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections and life-threatening communicable diseases. Grade 7
    • Safeteen provides students with skills to cultivate healthy personal boundaries in intimate relationships with a strong focus on refusal skills.
  • Strategies to protect themselves and others from potential abuse, exploitation, and harm in a variety of settings. Grades 7, 8, 9, 10
    • Through discussion and demonstration Safeteen helps students to identify and recognize potential exploitation and abuse.
    • Safeteen discusses the importance of fear and anger management in deescalating potential abuse, exploitation, and harm in a variety of settings; and offers students tools to manage these emotions when faced with conflict.
    • Students discuss and identify ways to manage and break abusive relationships patterns, including internal and external self-harm.
    • Through discussion and demonstration Safeteen provides awareness about online safety and bullying, as well as awareness of intuitive red flags and skills to report.
    • Students will embody the Safeteen assertiveness model and be able to apply the skills at school, at home and in their community.
  • Consequences of bullying, stereotyping, and discrimination. Grades 7, 8, 9, 10
    • Safeteen leads discussions on the impacts of bullying and intimidation, including race, class and gender-stereotypes; as well as upstander and bystander dynamics and de-escalation skills.
  • Influences of physical, emotional, and social changes on identities and relationships. Grades 7, 8, 9, 10
    • Safeteen offers discussions on the aspects of the physical, emotional and social changes during adolescence and how they impact self-identity and interpersonal relationships both face-to-face and online.
  • Healthy sexual decision making. Grades 8, 9, 10
    • A strong focus of the Safeteen programs is to cultivate clear and healthy sexual boundaries; as well as to identify the legalities and realities of sexual consent.
    • Safeteen teaches students to:
      • check in with the mind, heart and body on all sexual decisions.
      • identify confusion, doubt, or fear as what “No” feels like.
      • identify verbal, physical and emotional coercion and that their only responsibility is to assert their own boundary regardless of the expressed needs of others.
      • define sexual assault and sexual harassment.
      • know their personal and legal rights.
      • strategize and practice reporting sexual violations.
    • Students discuss the realities and legalities of sexting and online harassment.
    • Through discussion and role-plays, students identify what healthy intimate relationships look like; with a focus on trust, respect and mutual consent.
    • The realities and impacts of pornography are identified and discussed. Strong focus in Level 2
    • Students discuss and identify rape culture and victim blaming and are supported in making the psychological shift out of victim blaming regarding self and others.

See the BC Ministry of Education New Curriculum


HOW TO BOOK WITH US

Please contact us with your preferred dates. Safeteen can hold dates without any obligation, however advance booking is strongly recommended to secure your preferred dates.

Looking for funding?

Some good ideas include, fundraisers like car-washes, approach local businesses such as Realtors, Tim Hortons or major grocery chains to name a few. Sometimes fire halls have “Swear Jars” and distribute the money a few times a year; or crowd funding can be very powerful. Some schools have parents send $15 per student and that covers the cost, if workshops are at capacity, or PAC groups sponsor the workshops to ensure their children receive the life-saving skills offered in the Safeteen Programs.

Thank you for your continued support!