For the past five years, programs across the United States have been teaching healthy relationship skills to thousands of young people through Relationship Smarts PLUS 3.0 and Love Notes 2.1. Now, The Dibble Institute is excited to announce that both of these evidence-based programs have been updatedwith brand new information crucial to supporting teens and young adults in today’s world! They respond to changing conversations and conditions spurred on by #metoo, #timesup, smart phones, and social media. Relationship Smarts Plus 4.0 and Love Notes 3.0 both feature brand-new, age-appropriate content on: Sexual consent Online pornography Sexting Sexual assault Drugs and alcohol – and their impact on relationships Cyberbullying Relationship Smarts PLUS 4.0 is ideal for younger teens, and Love Notes 3.0 is ideal for older teens and young adults who are at risk of seeing their personal goals derailed by troubled relationships, unplanned pregnancy, and single parenting. Presenter: Marline E. Pearson. M.A., Author, Love Notes and…
Facilitators
Childhood trauma impacts growth and success in all areas of a young person’s life, including their capacity to form and maintain healthy relationships. How do we most effectively address the needs of traumatized youth in relationship skills programs? First, everyone in an organization needs to understand trauma, including administrators, supervisors and instructors. Then, we need to provide young people relief from distressing experiences by teaching them effective skills to calm and manage their emotions. Learn some modest yet proven programmatic changes that will enhance your organization’s effectiveness with young people who have experienced adversity in their childhoods. Presenter: Carolyn Rich Curtis, MFT, PhD, Author of “Mind Matters” and Founder of the Relationship Skills Center in Sacramento, CA
WEBINAR: Working Together: Developing & Implementing a Sustainable Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program
In October 2016, Dr. Michelle Toews and her colleagues at Kansas State University received a grant to develop, implement, and evaluate the #RELATIONSHIPGOALS program, a sexual risk avoidance education intervention with seventh- and ninth-grade students from a local school district. The goal of program is to empower youth to make healthy decisions by teaching them the benefits associated with self-regulation, healthy relationships and goal setting, while also teaching them how to resist sexual coercion, dating violence and other risky behaviors. The curriculum used in the intervention is Relationship Smarts PLUS, Sexual Risk Avoidance Adaptation. Preliminary results suggest the program is reaching its goal. Specifically, students report that they love the program and share that one of the most important things they learn is how to identify healthy and unhealthy relationships. They also say the program teaches them skills they need to develop healthy relationships, particularly effective communication skills, which they…
A record 55 percent of Millennial parents (ages 28-34) have put childbearing before marriage, according to a new analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistic’s Panel data by the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Family Studies. The rise of nontraditional routes into parenthood among Millennials is one indicator that today’s young adults are taking increasingly divergent paths toward adulthood, including family formation. New research by Dr. Wilcox and others shows that the success sequence works even for young adults today. In fact, 86% of Millennials who follow the sequence have now moved into the middle class and only 3% of Millennials who follow the sequence are poor today. Given the importance of education, work, and marriage—even for a generation that has taken increasingly circuitous routes into adulthood—Dr. Wilcox challenges policymakers, business leaders, and civic leaders to advance public policies and cultural changes to make his sequence both more attainable…
Many adults—especially parents—often fret about youth and the “hook-up culture.” But research suggests that far fewer young people are “hooking up” than we are commonly led to believe. This focus on the hook-up culture also obscures two much bigger issues that many young people appear to be struggling with: forming and maintaining healthy romantic relationships and dealing with widespread misogyny and sexual harassment. What’s more, it appears that parents and other key adults in young people’s lives often fail to address these two problems. Making Caring Common’s new report, The Talk: How Adults Can Promote Young People’s Healthy Relationships and Prevent Misogyny and Sexual Harassment, explores these issues and offers insights into how adults can begin to have meaningful and constructive conversations about them with the young people in their lives. Making Caring Common (MCC), a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, helps educators, parents, and communities raise children…
As a facilitator, the ultimate hope for program participants is to find meaning in curriculum sessions that eventually lead to behavior change. For some young people who have experienced trauma and adversity, the capacity to experiment with change can be frightening and overwhelming. By incorporating a Harm Reduction Framework into your facilitation, young people are given more opportunities to experience success, believe change is possible, and to strengthen their resiliency. During this webinar, participants will: Review and define Harm Reduction as a framework Discuss the benefits and challenges of Harm Reduction framework Review the role of resiliency and its importance in changing behavior Gain practical tools to improve resiliency for program participants Presenter: Kim Frierson, Training Specialist for RHYTTAC, the Runaway and Homeless Youth Training and Technical Assistance Center
ChildBuilders of Houston, Texas faced many challenges when introducing Relationship Smarts PLUS to disadvantaged youth. Limited instructional time, untrained staff, lack of funding, discipline issues, student mental health concerns, low parental support, and inconsistent attendance were some of the barriers that discouraged schools from fully participating in the program. They found, however, that one way to overcome these barriers was to partner with community organizations that worked in schools. The successful collaboration between ChildBuilders and ProUnitas now makes it possible for students in Houston public schools to learn the essential social and emotional skills presented in Relationship Smarts PLUS. Learn how their partnership is beneficial for both organizations as well as for the students they serve. Gain an understanding of what it takes to seek and develop new partnerships, communicate goals and expectations, share resources, and secure funding. At the conclusion of this webinar, you will be able to: Identify ways that community…
Relationships, whether sound or not, are central to the lives of disconnected youth. When at-risk youth learn healthy relationship skills they discover how to make beneficial decisions about their lives, their romantic relationships, and their family connections. We will identify risk factors that foster youth and runaway, homeless youth experience and how healthy relationship education offers protective factors that empower them to make healthier choices for their futures. At the conclusion of this webinar, attendees will: Identify the risk factors that disconnected youth experience and the protective factors that healthy relationship education offers them. Learn how healthy relationship education increases social and emotional well-being as well as decision making for youth. Discover how the evidence-based curriculum Love Notes is being used to improve outcomes for at-risk, homeless youth. Presenter: Dixie Zittlow, Director of Outreach l The Dibble Institute Resources: April 2017 Webinar PPT
Effective outreach and retention practices are an important element to the success of youth programs. However, organizations may be challenged in effectively reaching out to and engaging Latino and immigrant youth. These populations often require a tailored approach. In this webinar service providers will learn how to create innovative communication strategies to better recruit and retain Latino and immigrant youth. At the conclusion of this webinar, attendees will: Learn how to tailor their communications strategies to the needs and preferences of Latino and immigrant youth; Know how to create a strategic plan with a clear series of steps: getting to know their audience, setting objectives, messaging, outreach strategy, and tactical execution; Understand retention tactics and participant engagement for Latino and immigrant youth; Understand “real-time monitoring,” and how to effectively apply the practice to improve participant outreach and retention. Presenter: Selma Caal, PhD, Research Scientist, Child Trends Resources: American Hispanic Children Latino…
Participants will: Learn how to use Rational Emotive Theory to support effective workshop facilitation Increase their understanding of the importance of theoretical frameworks Decrease their frustration and increases effectiveness Identify effective methods of thinking We also want to hear what you are experiencing through interactive opportunities during this webinar. Eric will explore plausible solutions based in counseling theory and curriculum content. Presenter: Eric Murphy, MS, MA, Master Trainer, The Dibble Institute, Cooperative Extension Agent for West Virginia University Resources: February 2017 Webinar Resources
In this webinar, Clay Olsen, will discuss the latest findings from the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and the medical field on the impact that Internet porn is having on the developing brains of young people. Clay presents the topic as a public health issue, rather than as a moral, political or religious argument. In this webinar you will Understand why the Internet porn of today is having such a drastically different impact on the brains of young people than old school pornography did. Understand how Internet porn is impacting relationships for young people. Learn more from research about the negative outcomes that are associated with Internet porn. Learn what you can do to help young people who have decided that they want help with overcoming the addiction to Internet porn. Presenter: Clay Olsen, CEO of Fight the New Drug Resources: Teens and Pornography
Working directly with teens to robustly build healthy relationship skills gives us a unique and positive approach for primary and secondary dating violence prevention with males and females. Developing adolescents’ knowledge about and skills for their romantic lives is an especially effective approach to deescalating conflict, developing a personal sense of responsibility, and staying safe. This webinar will: Review the research on comprehensive relationship education as it relates to teen dating violence; Explore how relationship education positively impacts other outcomes for adolescents, and Learn strategies that participants can use to bring evidence-based relationship skills to their schools and communities. Presenter: Kay Reed, President and Executive Director, The Dibble Institute Resources: HRE for Dating Violence Prevention Among High-Risk Youth NIJ Journal Issue Number 261 Relationship Smarts Plus Sample Lesson STOP SV-A Technical Package to Prevent Sexual Violence Teen Dating Violence as a Public Health Issue
Relationships are important in helping youth achieve their goals and a successful transition into adulthood. Having the skills to manage healthy relationships can make a difference as youth make decisions related to school, employment, and pregnancy prevention. These skills may be especially important for youth involved in or aging out of the child welfare system. This webinar will provide participants with a better understanding of the importance of healthy relationships for youth in foster care. This webinar also will summarize current research and evaluation evidence on relationship education for youth in foster care. At the end of this webinar, participants will learn: Why healthy relationships matter for youth in foster care What types of programs focus on healthy relationships for youth in foster care Key program elements that are critical for successfully improving relationship skills among vulnerable youth Presenters: Mindy E. Scott, Ph.D., Deputy Program Area Director and Senior Research Scientist; April Wilson,…
At-risk youth, like many young people, are eager to build healthy, long lasting relationships. Yet, they lack the confidence and skills to do so. The recently revised Love Notes: Relationship Skills for Love, Life, and Work helps disconnected youth learn those skills to succeed in love, life, and work. Love Notes takes an integrated approach that embeds pregnancy, STI, and interpersonal violence prevention into a comprehensive relationship skills program applicable to personal and work life. Love Notes was recently placed on the Office of Adolescent Health’s list of evidence based pregnancy prevention programs based on its strong results in preventing pregnancies in an evaluation at the University of Louisville. Learn from program developer, Marline Pearson, more about Love Notes and its innovative theory of change that helps at-risk youth learn relationship skills for love, life and work Presenter: Marline E. Pearson, MA, Author of Love Notes and Relationship Smarts Plus
This webinar will address how OAH grantees can use Love Notes in their programs with youth. Presenters: Tish G. Hall, Public Health Advisor, Office of Adolescent Health Marline E. Pearson, M.A., Developer of Love Notes, Madison Area Technical College Kay Reed, Executive Director, Dibble Institute Anita Barbee, Ph.D., Principal Investigator, CHAMPS! Project, University of Louisville
Adolescent dating violence has surfaced as a significant public health issue. In response to this disturbing trend the US Department of Justice contracted with Concept Systems to conduct a study and directly engage teens and young adults to better understand how youth conceptualize teen dating and teen dating violence. The results of their study will be discussed as well as recommendations for next steps for researchers and youth educators. Presenters: Alyssa Goldman M.S., Concept Systems, Ithaca, NY and Jessica Gosa M.S.W., L.M.S.W., Concept Systems, Ithaca, NY Resources: March-2015-Webinar-Resource
Learn proven strategies of raising private money for relationship skills classes with youth. Our panel will discuss a wide variety of methods they have used to fund classes that help teens get smart about their love lives. Presenter Panel: Carol Jackson, Program Director of Families Matter in Memphis, TN. Erin Stone, Executive Director of Relationship Skills Center in Sacramento, CA. Kathy Schleier, Executive Director of Family Frameworks in Dalton, GA. Resources: July 2014 Webinar PPT
Social Science research has taught us a great deal about how healthy and stable couple relationships matter to children. High rates of unplanned childbearing among teens and young adults are generating more gender, racial and income inequality plus producing profoundly unequal outcomes for children. Webinar attendees will examine: the impact of the parental relationship on children, the benefits a healthy parental union brings to a child and how educators can guide parents to create and sustain a healthy, parental relationship in today’s culture. Presenter: Dixie Zittlow, Director of Outreach, The Dibble Institute Resources: April 2014 Webinar PPT
Recruiting and appealing to young adults ages 18-24 can be challenging for a multitude of reasons. In this webinar, Vanessa Logan describes her unique “boots on the ground” approach for how to build trust with marginalized young adults and consequently is able to provide them with tools to develop self-sufficiency. Integrated into her approach is the essential building of healthy relationship skills with pregnant and parenting youth, empowering them to successfully parent or even co-parent when no longer together. With a heart for people, Vanessa identifies critical needs of the underserved and builds bridges by partnering with organizations and community initiatives to uncover resources and move others toward economic mobility and self-sufficiency. Vanessa has a voice in the community for what makes a community thrive: it’s people. Objectives: Through the example of Vanessa Logan webinar attendees will learn to: Recruit young adults 18-24 years old into Healthy Relationship programming; Build…
Many young people are under-educated in consent, thus limiting their understanding of what it is and what it is not. Research finds persistent confusion about what constitutes both lack of consent and sexual assault. As youth-serving professionals, we can help bridge that gap to help young people better understand these two relevant and extremely important topics. In other words, let’s work to help “unblur” what for some can be a blurry understanding of consent and sexual assault. In this interactive webinar, participants will respond to scenarios as well as discuss and explore tips and strategies for communicating “yes”, checking-in, and exploring sexual boundaries between partners. Objectives: Specifically, webinar attendees will be able to: Define what consent is and what it is not. Identify 3-4 components of what is effectively communicated consent and boundaries Explain the importance of educating youth on the right to refuse sexual contact and what refusal can…