Last week Corey Ann and I met with two other awesome prevention teams; the Houston Area Women’s Center and the Fort Bend County Women’s Center. A motivating factor to having this meeting of the prevention minds was to gain insight into what other agencies are doing and how we can all improve together. It was great to hear stories, share ideas, and gain perspective on what other people in the state are doing to prevent sexual violence! The entire meeting was charged with positive energy and a desire to help improve all of our prevention techniques.
Ft. Bend County Women’s Center
Let’s be honest – prevention can be complicated. To see so many passionate preventioneers and learn new techniques helped me realize that communication around this work is so important. A variety of topics are included when talking about preventing violence because all forms of oppression can lead to violence. To throw another layer of complication on top of this, we work with youth. While students can be very charged and passionate, like most other people they will mentally “check-out” if we are irrelevant or just plain boring. Hearing how other agencies stay accountable to youth while keeping youth engaged is motivating. Improvement is always possible.
The key to good prevention work is access to knowledge, tools, and resources. In a world where youth are constantly changing and navigating new obstacles, prevention techniques need to be right there with them. With the ability to shift and grow with youth, we can help them tackle new problems and build with them to stop sexual violence.
Thank you Houston Area Women’s Center and Ft. Bend County Women’s Center for all of your fantastic work!
~MichaelElaine M. Stark; Structured Education Coordinator
July 17, 2012 at 2:50 pm |
So incredibly proud of our prevention team!