Sexual assault prevention course now open to girls 14-18
The Girls Resist study is open to all girls aged 14-18 in Windsor, London and Kingston
A program at the University of Windsor teaching awareness and defence strategies against sexual assault has shown positive results, according to the Windsor educator who created it. Now, she says it's time to teach a younger demographic those skills.
As several cities across Ontario declare intimate partner violence as an epidemic, the Girls Resist study is looking for Windsor, London and Kingston girls aged 14 to 18 who want to take the program and learn how to get out of a potentially unsafe situation early and effectively.
Charlene Senn is a Canada Research Chair in sexual violence and a professor of Psychology and Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Windsor who developed the study to test the effectiveness of the program, called Flip the Script, on the younger demographic.
"The problem has been that we do not have effective programs yet, there are no means of preventing perpetration," said Senn. "Our goal is to assess if there are further modifications needed in the program [for those girls] who have not yet graduated from high school."
Senn has been researching for the program since 2005 and was able to test the program at the University of Windsor in 2015. Based on feedback from the women who took the course, Senn was able to track its effectiveness, which helped her receive funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada to continue her work.
As a result, Senn has partnered with a co-principal investigator, Sara Crann to study how the program works with teen girls over the course of five years.
"There [are] a lot of messages that suggest that women and girls should restrict their own behaviour. These don't actually provide safety because the most common place to be assaulted is in someone's home. Most of the assaults are by boys and men that we know," Senn said.
"I started the research with university women because university age, that 17 to 24, is a high-risk group. But it is actually 14 to 24 that is the period of greatest risk for girls and women," said Senn.
The program will be structured similarly for the new, younger study group, apart from some contextual components, such as referencing going to a bar.
Currently, the Flip the Script program at the university takes place over a weekend and includes four components, including education on the real risk of sexual violence, empowering the attendees to feel able to leave a situation once it is deemed unsafe, physical and verbal defence methods, and a more lighthearted segment on healthy relationships.
Anne Rudzinski, the campus trainer for the Flip the Script program, says the education is critical.
"It's very empowering for us to teach young women about the rights that they have to their own bodily autonomy. That they legally and morally have the ability and the rights to keep themselves safe," Ruszinski says. "It's a really radical conversation that's important to be having."
Rudzinski says the program is one she wishes she had when she was younger.
"We're often taught that we're not good at sensing these things. Maybe we're just misreading it, or maybe that person didn't mean to be creepy and gross. This program gives people the permission to trust that sense and do something about it."
Kim Courtis is a University of Windsor student in the process of receiving an education degree. She was able to take the Flip the Script program in 2022, and calls its a "non-negotiable" that she will be planning to integrate into her own classroom one day.
"Every woman on campus should be taking this workshop. I don't know how else I would have learned these things," Courtis said.
"These things could be happening to students in my own classrooms. I would feel I'm doing a huge disservice to them if I'm actively choosing to admit information that could help keep them safe. I think that's why things like Girls Resist are so important. Having things like this coming to high school [and younger] aged girls can truly save lives."
Upcoming sessions for the Girls Resist study are happening in Windsor on Oct. 21 and 22, London on Nov. 4 and Kingston on Nov. 18. More information can be found here.
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