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The WEEO WISER workshop program

  • The WEEO WISER workshop program runs for 5 double-period sessions (about 2-hours each) run over 5 weeks.
  • It is a prevention program which aims to provide young women with interactive education workshops about safe & equal relationships and abuse & violence.
  • working on blackboardThe workshop program is available for all girls in year 9 in high schools in the Liverpool area. It’s not a therapeutic group targeting young women who are experiencing violence in relationships or are particularly at risk.
  • 10-15 young women from year 9 participate in each workshop program. Sometimes more than one program runs at a high school at a time.
  • Workshops are facilitated by a pairs of paid peer educators. This diverse group of local young women are trained to run the program.
    They are supported in their role by experienced workers in the field
    (support people).

What happens in the WEEO WISER Workshop

workshop 1

Introduction

creating a safe space to talk

 

 

Guy/girls, roles & power

Subtle forms of abuse including jealousy

workshop 2


What is abuse?

workshop 3

Feeling good & being
safe in relationships

workshop 4

When things go wrong

Creating healthy relationships


Action:

What you can do for yourself & others & available supports

workshop 5

Workshop objectives

Workshop 1

Introduction: creating a safe space to talk about violence and abuse issues and healthy relationships

Introduce the program structure and purpose, and the peer educators

  • Introduce the key messages of the program
  • Create a safe learning environment
  • Introduce discussion about relationships, their impact and place in the lives of young women
  • Collect data on young women’s current knowledge, behaviour and attitudes about relationships violence and healthy relationships
  • Begin to identify the features of unhealthy relationships, including the warning signs of abusive relationships

Begin to challenge cultural assumptions about women, men & relationships (includes assumptions within all cultural communities).

Putting together workshop materials

Workshop 2

Gender, roles & power

  • Examine gender roles and describe the difference in the socially constructed expectations of young women and young men
  • Develop a gender-based perspective that participants can use to understand the common dynamics of abusive relationships, explored in later workshops. For example that power and control are key processes and that it is usually men who are perpetrators and women who are victims.
  • Challenge stereotypes about gender and relationships, such as that women need to be submissive to men.
  • Identify and list the features of a healthy

Begin to identify the features of unhealthy relationships, including the warning signs of abusive relationships

Workshop 3

Abuse & respect: what is it, power, control & the law.
Looking at healthy, equal relationships.

  • Define relationship violence and the different forms of abuse & violence
  • Identify the control and manipulation as forms of relationship violence
  • Continue to identify & name the warning signs of abusive relationships
  • Use a gender-bases perspective to understand abusive relationships
  • Identify abuse as unacceptable in all situations
  • Describe the basics of the legal framework for responding to violence in relationships (including DV, child protection, sexual violence)
  • List the features of unhealthy relationships
  • Describe the “cycle of violence” as a common pattern that violent relationships often follow and the likelihood of violence escalating over time

Workshop 4

The impact of abuse & creating healthy relationships

  • Define relationship violence and the different forms of abuse & violence
  • Identify the control and manipulation as forms of relationship violence
  • Continue to identify & name the warning signs of abusive relationships
  • Use a gender-bases perspective to understand abusive relationships
  • Identify abuse as unacceptable in all situations
  • Describe the basics of the legal framework for responding to violence in relationships (including DV, child protection, sexual violence)
  • List the features of unhealthy relationships
  • Describe the “cycle of violence” as a common pattern that violent relationships often follow and the likelihood of violence escalating over time

Workshop 5

Action: what you can do for yourself & others & available supports

  • Describe what good support is and what makes support helpful (“good” support)
  • Identify that some forms of intervention in a relationship where there is violence & abuse what are not helpful (“bad” support)
  • Identify a range of sources of support. This includes identify personal sources of support & name support services that can assist young women in abusive relationships
  • Identify at a basic level how the service system, including the legal system, can be used to support women experiencing abuse.
  • Begin to demonstrate the knowledge and skills to provide non-judgemental support to other women
  • Begin to demonstrate a willingness to intervene in abusive relationships of others, if this can be done in way that doesn’t compromise her own safety.
  • Begin to recognise & describe the barriers that can keep women in unhealthy relationships/ prevent women from leaving
  • Collect data on young women’s knowledge, behaviour and attitudes about relationships violence and healthy relationships at the end of the workshop program