Ticats visited WDHS on Feb. 24, writes Penny Deathe
OPINION
By Penny Deathe
Flamborough Review
Thursday, March 2, 2023
“Training and equipping young people to lead change.”
Embedded in our mission statement, we are excited to see it in action. It’s been a busy month for the HEART (Healthy Education About Relationships Team) at Waterdown District High School and Sir Allan MacNab Secondary School. Partnering with Interval House to bring Be More Than A Bystander (BMTAB) Month into our schools, they promoted Wear Purple Day, launched a poster competition and, at MacNab, they gave out heart-shaped cookies on Valentine’s Day.
On Feb. 24, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats paid a visit to WDHS to talk about what being more than a bystander means, using training they received from Interval House. Our thanks to Domino’s for providing pizza coupons to encourage students to participate and fill in a survey.
But it doesn’t end there. Interval House will be training our HEART students, increasing their awareness and understanding of gender-based and sexual violence, its impacts and how they can safely intervene when they witness or experience it. The training will then extend to other high school student groups and classes.
The hope is that our high school students will then train elementary students. We also had the opportunity to meet with male educators at WDHS to talk about how we can better engage and support our male students.
We discussed the approach we needed to take, which included keeping it positive, fostering male leadership, making it fun, ensuring a safe space, growing it organically (student-led), incorporating skill building and, of course, our train-the-trainer approach. Sharing stories from former students who can now reflect on what they wished they knew is another approach we’ll be looking into.
We’re so very thankful for our teachers who go above and beyond to make a difference and look forward to working with them and our students to lead change.
Penny Deathe is the executive director and founder of the Healthy Youth Network. She can be reached at penny@healthyouthnetwork.ca.
