Curriculum
Team Up Washington provides free training events open to any coach, athletic director, team mentor, or violence prevention advocate in Washington State who wants to implement Coaching Boys Into Men or Athletes As Leaders. All we ask is for a commitment to implement the program with your team. Join us and learn how to develop student athletes to become ambassadors for healthy relationships and consent as leaders in their peer communities.
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Athletes As Leaders
Athletes As Leaders was developed right here in Seattle at Garfield High School in Seattle by Rebecca Milliman, MSW, in her leadership role managing the prevention initiative at Garfield High School. Tapping the expertise of the female student athletes, Disney Williams and Elise Morris, Rebecca also involved her staff person, Monica Schell to craft a curriculum that would be a gender-inclusive program designed for high school athletes on girls’ sports teams. The program they ultimately crafted, then called Student Leaders and Athletic Youth , was then able to help engage the other half of the school not receiving Coaching Boys Into Men and thus have a true campus wide sexual violence prevention effort. What eventually became known as Athletes As Leaders, the program aims to empower student athletes to take an active role in promoting healthy relationships and ending sexual violence. Designed to be implemented in conjunction with Coaching Boys Into Men, the program the men’s sports teams were receiving. Athletes As Leaders is based on research and best practices in the field of sexual assault prevention. Athletes are encouraged to be leaders in changing peer norms and school climate to a culture of safety and respect.
During the 2017-18 school year, high school sports teams across the nation were recruited to participate in an evaluation of the program conducted by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh. Participating athletes completed pre and post-program surveys, which were analyzed for changes in attitudes and beliefs. Survey responses show statistically significant changes across three protective factors to sexual violence: improved ability to identify abusive behaviors, improved belief in gender equity and increased self-image and confidence.
Coaching Boys Into Men
Coaching Boys into Men is a comprehensive violence prevention curriculum and program that inspires athletic coaches to teach their young athletes that violence never equals strength and violence against women and girls is wrong. The program comes with strategies, scenarios, and resources needed to talk to boys, specifically, about healthy and respectful relationships, dating violence, sexual assault, and harassment. Ending in 2012, Coaching Boys into Men underwent a rigorous three-year evaluation in Sacramento, California funded by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and conducted by Dr. Elizabeth Miller, now of the University of Pittsburgh.
Since the launch of Coaching Boys into Men in 2001, thousands of coaches around the world have signed up in support. Over the course of a season, Coaching Boys into Men coaches lead their players through brief weekly activities that address themes such as personal responsibility, respectful behavior, and relationship abuse. Athletic coaches can play an influential role in the lives of young men, often serving as life-long mentors to the boys they coach. Because of this unique relationship, coaches are poised to positively influence how young men think and behave on and off the field. Whether it’s in talks with the team, practice sessions, game days, or simply casual conversation, coaches have numerous opportunities to teach early and often that violence has no place in relationships. Teams are encouraged to involve fans, parents, faculty, other students, and school administrators in support of Coaching Boys into Men’s respect message. To learn more, please visit www.CoachesCorner.org
Coaching Boys into Men® is a program of Futures Without Violence, a non-profit organization that works to end violence against women, children, and families around the world.
