Strategies for Engaging Youth in Sexual
Violence Prevention Conference
We came together again this year! We shared information and resources, developed innovative next steps for prevention work, learned from each other’s challenges, celebrated our successes, and gained valuable insights. Here’s a recap:
Day One:
The first day of the conference started with a warm welcome by Megan O’Bryan, Executive Director of the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center. She gave everyone words of encouragement and spoke about the exciting collaborative agreement between the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence and the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center.
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After introducing our first speaker, we all enjoyed a fun, engaging, and informative keynote presentation by one of our national leaders in youth development and engagement — Ty Sells. Ty Sells, Director of Training at Youth to Youth International, has many years experience working with youth. In his keynote entitled, Creating Connections That Count, he spoke about the importance of youth engagement and leadership development. Through his high-energy presentation, participants were given effective ways to motivate and build connections with youth. Email Ty to request his prevention handouts. |
Ty Sells giving his keynote presentation. |
| Moving from theory to practical applications, two panels of prevention practitioners and youth peer-educators spoke about their experience working in their communities. The panels, moderated by Amanda Suttle of the Ohio Department of Health, were able to share their tips, challenges, and successes in working with youth educators. The teen panel included teens from across Ohio from a variety of different programs. They shared their unique perspectives as youth educators and helped us understand how best to work with and engage younger audiences. |  Amanda Suttle moderates a panel with (from left to right), Jan GreenRiver, Melissa McClain, Alex Leslie, Danielle Cisterino, Nikki Shrinak, and Lynn Felis. |
 Youth Peer Educators from across Ohio participated in a lively discussion. Included in this photo (from left to right): Gregory Broadwater, Arissa Scott, Tawnee GreenRiver, Shayna Stolte , Autumn Rose Post, Os’sad Shaheer, Brooke McCartney, and Alyssa Guinn. |
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After a brief overview of the PEACE Collaborative, presented by Julianna Nemeth and Nancy Radcliffe, which inspired us to nurture collaborations between agencies, we closed the day with a World Café — a collaborative exchange of information and ideas in order to accomplish an overarching goal. Lead by Lauren Riley, of Tri-County Mental Health, participants engaged in an active and creative exercise that garnered important ideas and approaches to prevention work. Attendees enjoyed the freedom to write down, list, or draw picture to express their thoughts and ideas. Finally, the group gathered the key ideas that were important to them and grouped them based on topic area.
This collective wisdom can be found here:- PEACE Colaborative - Fostering Coalitions & Networks
- PEACE - The Delaware County PEACE Colaborative Overview
- World Café Table
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Creativity filled the room during the World Café workshop. |
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Day Two:
The beginning of day two began with a welcome from Debra Seltzer, from the Ohio Department of Health, who informed the audience about ODH updates and information. She shared an exciting evaluation project lead by Sandra Ortega, and work being done to develop core competencies for sexual violence prevention practitioners.
Conference coordinator, Jasmine Finnie, of the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence, followed by sharing the results of the World Café and introducing the first speaker of the day, Lorien Castelle, from New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Lorien Castelle’s keynote, Youth Engagement Strategies for Preventing Dating Violence: Promoting Youth Leadership and Addressing Adultism, discussed the barriers that adultism can create when adults work with young people. She followed her keynote with an afternoon workshop entitled Challenging Adultism: Promoting Youth Leadership to Address Teen Dating Violence. Lorien Castelle’s conference materials: |
 Lorien Castelle presenting her Adultism based keynote. |
 Lisa Sohn presenting talking about Start Strong. |
Lisa Sohn, from Futures Without Violence spoke about the Start Strong project that is taking place around the U.S. through her keynote entitled Start Strong: Building Healthy Teen Relationships. Audience members were shown examples of successful programs taking place in specific states, that are engaging youth in creative and innovative ways. She followed her keynote with an afternoon workshop, partnering with two Start Strong project coordinators, Kimberly Matulonis, Paige Nelson, where participants were able to see further examples of the Start Strong projects in action. Start Strong conference materials: |
Laura Schumm, from the Ohio Domestic Violence Network, led a highly enjoyable and active afternoon workshop dealing with reproductive coercion, a topic not typically discussed in sexual violence prevention. Participants created a list of strategies to incorporate reproductive coercion into prevention work.
Laura Schumm’s conference materials:Laura Rooney, from the Ohio Department of Health, facilitated a discussion on working with schools and how to develop your prevention program around the goals of the school.
Email Laura Rooney to request her conference materials.
List of speakers with their bio and contact information.
Thank you to everyone who joined us on June 29-30, 2011! We hope you had a valuable and meaningful experience.