Educating young people about sexual violence contributes to sexual violence prevention because it helps youth understand their rights and the laws governing consent and sexual violence; it challenges myths about sexual violence and supports youth in developing the skills to challenge these myths and educates bystanders to spot sexual violence and intervene safely and appropriately. (Adapted from the White Ribbon's Drawing the Line on Sexual Violence: A Guide for Ontario Educators.)
Educators, through healthy living education, have the capacity to foster an atmosphere of trust and provide a safe space in which students can learn about sexual violence and acquire the skills needed to deal with situations involving sexual violence and ways of preventing it.
This website contains a variety of resources such as Fact Sheets, Posters, Videos, Educator Guides and Lesson Plans on a variety of topics related to sexual violence education. These topics include:
- Healthy relationships and warning signs of an unhealthy relationship
- Consent and respect for others
- Internal and external factors that effect a person’s feelings
- How a person’s body and brain respond to challenging or uncomfortable situations
- Types of abuse
- Gender based violence
- The role of bystanders in sexual violence prevention
- How to recognize and respond to coercive, inappropriate and non-consensual sexual behaviours
- The connections between sexual violence and an individual’s mental health and mental illnes
- Identifying trusted people, resources and supports available.
Educators may use these resources as background information to increase their awareness and understanding of sexual violence or in a variety of ways to support their students’ understanding of topics related to sexual violence prevention.
Questions and Prompts
Use the information with students to explore and answer inquiry questions, such as:
- Think about the kinds of behaviour that help to make those relationships healthier.
- What are some signs of potential trouble?
- What are some things to be aware of in a relationship to keep yourself and your partner safe?
- What can you do if you are having problems with a relationship?
- How can you help a friend who may be in an unhealthy relationship?
- What are the different kinds of bullying?
- What is an example of social bullying?
- What is an example of physical bullying?
- What is an example of verbal bullying?
- Is one type of bullying any more or less hurtful than another?
- If someone does something online that you disagree with or that is intrusive, what can you do?
- A common form of harassment is spreading hurtful gossip about others.
- Is this type of bullying any less harmful than physical bullying?
- How can it be stopped?
- Slurs against others are disrespectful and hurtful and violate their human dignity.
- What can be done to change or challenge this kind of harassment?
- Harassment, violence, and abuse can take many different forms and occur in many different situations and settings. Stalking, sexual assault, abuse within a family, extortion, workplace harassment, and cyber-bullying are a few well-known examples.
- How might the individuals involved be affected in some of these situations?
- How can we respond to harassment and abuse in our school or community?
- What is being done to deal with harassment and abuse in other parts of the world?
Note: Sample questions extracted from Ontario Curriculum, Health and Physical Education, Grade 1-8, 2019 and Ontario Curriculum, Health and Physical Education, Grade 9-12, 2015.
Resources
Use the fact sheets to help students develop their understanding of healthy relationships, consent and sexual assault, appropriate ways of responding to non-consensual behaviour, and sources of support.
Use the data with students in order to deepen their understanding of the effects and legal implications of different types of harassment, violence, and abuse and to analyze the occurrence of harassment, violence, and abuse in relationships in their community and around the world.
Use the posters, scenario cards, and videos with students in order to help them:
- Assess the potential impact of various types of violent behaviours such as bullying, relationship violence, abuse, exploitation, or harassment and other forms of gender-based and identity-based bullying and the type of coercion that can occur in connection with sexting and online activities, and identify ways to prevent or resolve such incidents.
- Develop their decision making, problem solving, and communication skills and conflict resolution strategies in order to generate solutions and communicate strategies that can be used to prevent or respond to situations of verbal, physical, and social bullying, sexual harassment, sexting, and coercive, inappropriate, and non-consensual sexual behaviours.
Have students use the scenarios as models for generating scenarios related to harassment, bullying, relationship violence, and other inappropriate non-consensual behaviours and then apply their social emotional learning/living skills to respond to the various student generated scenarios.
Use the lesson plans as an activity resource to engage students in grade-appropriate and developmentally appropriate learning about sexual violence.
Provide the fact sheets, posters, and videos as models for students to create their own social media campaign aimed at educating others about sexual violence.