Education

Raising awareness about healthy and unhealthy relationships 

The Peer Advocate program, a longstanding collaboration between Teton County School District and Community Safety Network, has been active for over a decade. Meetings occur about every other week at Jackson Hole High School. The club comprises 9th-12th grade students who are committed to enhancing community safety.  

Our primary focus lies in raising awareness about healthy, unhealthy, and abusive relationships, as well as consent. We conduct awareness campaigns and educational events within the school community. Additionally, we strive to reassure survivors within the school that there are individuals dedicated to creating a better world and that they are not alone. We firmly believe in and support survivors. 

Each year, CSN selects one student who has gone through the Peer Advocate training to receive the Peer Advocate Scholarship, a financial award towards college tuition in partnership with the Fund for Public Education. This year, the winning student will receive $2,000 and be honored for going above and beyond in their support and advocacy among peers of CSN’s mission. 

Introducing healthy dating and relationships in middle school 

Dating 101 is a middle school club that focuses on respect in relationships. Though the discussion of romantic relationships is the exciting stuff that gets them in the door, the tenets of healthy relationships are actually the same for both friendships and romantic relationships. In this club, we discuss the foundations of healthy relationships: trust, respect, communication, fun, kindness, vulnerability, honesty, etc. We create an honest, frank, and age-appropriate space to answer questions about dating. We play games, we eat candy, we watch videos, we do skits, and we talk about (and eat) FRIES. (link to blog article) 

 Our goal with Dating 101 is normalize the often nervous, awkward, and inaccurate information around dating relationships, and establish an everyday culture of consent where everyone feels safe, respected, happy, and healthy in all of their relationships.   

Facilitating athlete leadership and empowerment 

Athletes as Leaders is a national violence prevention program from the Seattle-based nonprofit Futures without Violence that uses girls’ athletics’ teams practice time to engage young people in conversations around respect and healthy relationships. Almost ten years ago, Jim Jenkins, CSN advocate, teacher, and coach reached out to CSN to dedicate some of the girls’ swim team practice time to violence prevention, recognizing how important consent education is for young people.  

 Having just wrapped up our 8th year, what began as a violence prevention effort using Athletes as Leaders pre-written curriculum, is now a unique female athlete empowerment program with custom curriculum written anew each year by CSN. We discuss consent, healthy relationships, bystander intervention, sexism, and how to best support each other – and whatever other topics are plaguing young female athletes.  

 In 20-minute increments across eight sessions, this program uplifts athletes’ unique leadership styles and gives them skills to navigate tough conversations and dynamic environments.   

Conversations about relationships and mental health 

Coaching Boys into Men (CBiM) is a national violence prevention program that connects athletic teams with advocates like Community Safety Network. Through partnerships with the Teton County School District and Jackson Hole Youth Soccer, we brought CBiM to Jackson, emphasizing coaches’ influential role in shaping young athletes’ lives. CBiM involves 8-12 short conversations delivered by coaches on essential topics such as digital boundaries, bullying, mental health, and respect for women and girls.  

 Given athletes’ common role as leaders among their peers, this program serves as a preventive measure by instructing young male athletes in crucial relationship skills and mental health strategies related to violence and abuse.