Bystander intervention training program expanding to N.S. high schools

Bystander intervention training offered at all post-secondary institutions in Nova Scotia is expanding to high schools.

An email from the Department of Education and Early Childhood development said the Waves of Change training to address sexualized violence will be offered in some high schools this year.

"We are currently working with local organizations and other government departments to do so. At this time, we have not determined how many schools will receive this training this school year." 

The expansion was among the recommendations in the Mass Casualty Commission report that states bystander intervention training should be incorporated in every grade-level curriculum in each province and territory.

The training has already been implemented at every university and college campus in Nova Scotia. 

Many students say training should be offered earlier

Heather Blackburn, the sexual violence prevention and response advocate at St. Francis Xavier University, has had over 700 students participate this year. 

She said students say this type of training should be provided before university. 

"When I'm talking to university students about this work, I'm often responded with, I really wish that someone had started these conversations when I was in high school," said Blackburn.

The program considers the first two months of the university year as critical. The "red zone" refers to the time when most instances of sexualized violence occur on university campuses.

"There are more parties this time of year for many students, it's their first time drinking, being away from home and the new environment," said Allison Smith, the sexualized violence response and education co-ordinator at Acadia University. "People are coming from all sorts of levels of experience of understanding consent."

The program, funded by the province, is peer-facilitated and supported by front-line staff and the provincial sexual violence prevention education co-ordinator.

The two-hour workshop encourages students to understand consent, behaviours that fall on a spectrum of sexualized violence, and bystander intervention skills that could minimize harm.

"This is the time of year when those conversations are all the more pivotal so that we're keeping safety and consent at the forefront of our interactions with others," said Smith. 

Olivia Landry, the provincial sexual violence prevention education co-ordinator for all Nova Scotia universities and NSCC, says the training helps give students more confidence to take action.

'We can help increase the number of people intervening'

She referred to a 2019 study from the Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics that indicated 91 per cent of women and 92 per cent of men attending university had witnessed unwanted sexualized behaviour and not intervened on at least one occasion.

"By getting this training, giving students the tools … to intervene, we can help increase the number of people intervening when they see something's wrong and to be able to help out other students on their campuses," said Landry. 

Co-ordinators of the program from Acadia University, with help from Landry, provided training to grades 10 and 11 students at Horton High School earlier this year after administrative staff from the high school reached out to Smith. 

"The high school students were also quite engaged," Smith said. "And we had a lot of wonderful interaction and feedback from them."

Dee Dooley, the sexual violence adviser at Saint Mary's University, said the expansion of this type of training in every level of schooling would help transform a culture that has always enabled gender-based violence. 

"We are all socialized in a culture that teaches us gender norms, that normalizes violence," said Dooley. 

"I think the earlier we can disrupt this, the better that we can do to build a safe and empowering culture for everyone and that really starts as early as possible."