I’m an Australian Social Worker, who had the privilege of visiting SWOVA as part of my Churchill Fellowship – a scholarship supporting me to travel to Canada and the USA to investigate Family Violence and Sexual Assault prevention programs, approaches and evaluations.
As I travel around, my intention is to learn about unique and promising practice, to then share when I return home. I was inspired by Lynda, Christina and Sharyn who shared details about SWOVA’s Respectful Relationships program, training and youth engagement. I was particularly interested to learn about the Youth Team as I’ve not heard of such an established youth-leadership component in any program back home. I loved that the focus was on providing further enrichment and opportunity for the participants, as much as supporting them to co-facilitate future programs.
I was also interested to hear about the strengths and challenges of SWOVA’s online, module style training which allows the program to reach more young people in more parts of Canada. This is perhaps something for Australian’s to consider, given our equally large and expansive country.
Given that Salt Spring Island is relatively isolated, I was amazed that the SWOVA team has achieved so much.
Thanks for having me!
by Ellen Poyner
If you would like, you can follow my Fellowship blog – ellenpoyner.wordpress.com
Having sat on the Canadian Women’s Foundation committee allocating funding to Teen Healthy Relationship programs, and now acting as a Community Engagement Manager at the White Ribbon Campaign in Toronto, I remain convinced that the depth work SWOVA does in the R+R program is extremely valuable to youth and is in fact unparalleled nationally. There is no program that spends more time with youth, covers as many concepts, and goes to the depths that the R+R program does. I am pleased that the program is gaining international recognition once again.