Healthy relationships

Helping youth negotiate the minefield of interpersonal relations

L–R: Emily Turnbull, Tamara Sloat, Tamara Barnett, Meaghan Stein, Angela Robertson and Instructor Maureen Ryan. PHOTO: Emily Agopsowicz

By Emily Agopsowicz

A group of fourth-year UVic nursing students is taking a proactive approach to educating youth about healthy relationships.

Your Right to Respect: A Guide to Healthy Relationships and Decision Making is a program aimed at high school students, created by Tamara Sloat and Tamara Barnett during a practicum at St. Michael’s University School in January 2007. There are now five nursing students involved in the program, which has been piloted at Claremont and Belmont secondary schools, as well as S.J. Willis alternative school.

“We teach about healthy and unhealthy relationships and how to recognize the signs of both,” says Sloat. “We create a safe place for youth to ask questions and we provide resources for them that come from a nurse’s perspective.”

Barnett and Sloat started the project as a class assignment for Nursing 430: Nurses Influencing Change, a course that explores ways nurses can influence and create change for the promotion of societal health. They felt that as nurses there was something they could offer to the current high school curriculum; and when they brought their ideas to their classmates they found others with the same passion for youth health education.

“We wanted to do something beneficial for the community. We talked to our classmates about what they would have wanted in their high school education, and we found that it was more information on relationships,” says Sloat.
The group used their own experiences and classroom material to develop the program.

“We don’t teach sex ed. We talk about relationships. We talk about the things that youth want to know about. We draw on our own life experiences,” says Barnett. Sloat stresses that the program is not just focused on romantic relationships but all aspects of human interaction.

The group works closely with teachers to meet the unique needs of each classroom.

“The program is very interactive,” says Sloat. “We play games, and give lots of time for questions. We talk about how the media influence our idea of how relationships should be.”

They have received positive feedback from students, parents and teachers. One teacher even requested that they bring the program to her own son’s class after seeing the positive response from her students.

The program is in constant revision to accommodate community feedback.

“After each presentation we have students write their comments, whether they liked it or didn’t like it. We’ve also had verbal responses—people saying ‘I need to reevaluate my relationships,’” says Sloat.

“This is a very sustainable program, because it fits in with BC’s commitment to healthy schools,” says Maureen Ryan, faculty liaison for the program. She says that the next step is to formally evaluate the program, share what they’ve learned with colleagues, and develop it into a more substantial program.

“This program helps the community see nurses, younger nurses, interacting with the community. Nurses have a lot to offer the community in a number of ways,” says Ryan. “A part of their education is community empowerment and community development. One of the roles of nurses is to translate the knowledge that they gain into something that is accessible to the community.”