‘It’s all about prevention’: Alberta school program works to break cycle of domestic abuse

Students at a Morinville, Alberta school are learning about healthy relationships. Nicole Weisberg has the details.

A program that helps youth develop healthy relationships with others has expanded to include boys at Morinville’s Four Winds School.

The course was developed three years ago in partnership with the Jessica Martel Memorial Foundation, an organization that runs two shelters and provides other services to domestic abuse survivors.

“There were three of us at the time, we designed the program and it was student-led, so whatever problems the girls were going through or questions they had, we designed a lesson about it,” former educational facilitator Sarah Hall told CTV News Edmonton.

They called the twice-a-week class “Inspire” and nine middle school students were enrolled the first year.

“Sure enough they started to open up. They talked about what’s going on in their lives, home life, their siblings, with neighbors, sometimes with work and of course their parents and their peers and teachers,” said Hall.

She described the course’s educational facilitators as “mentors” to students and said they discussed things like problem-solving, bullying and boundaries.

“When we’re younger, a lot of us aren’t learning about boundaries. We’re not learning what a healthy relationship looks like. Those things are modeled in our own homes and a lot of times they’re in silos.”

Program expansion

Fast forward to this year and Hall’s youngest son is now in the inaugural boys class.

“Boys have just as many problems as girls, especially when it comes to regulating emotion, understanding their emotions,” she said.

Aaron Dupuis was brought on as the educational facilitator and said while the boys learn similar things to the girls, the conversations are different.

“For example, when you’re talking about healthy body image, that’ll look a little bit different for the boys. They want to be more muscular, more athletic,” he said.

Dupuis said with youth spending so much time online and being exposed to images with filters, many have unrealistic expectations about what they and their peers should look like.

Internet safety is also broached.

“We had the ICE team come in, that’s the Internet Child Exploitation team, and from that we learned there’s a rising trend in young boys being targeted online,” he said.

Police have put out several warnings about a tactic known as “sextortion,” where an online predator convinces a victim to send them sexually explicit images and uses those images to blackmail them.

“Students are pretty tech-savvy but it’s just reinforcing that it’s a dangerous place,” explained Dupuis.

Supports for adults

The Family Centre in Edmonton offers a healthy relationship group for men called “Strive”.

Mark Frederick spent five years running the group and said participants often grew up in conflict-ridden families.

“A lot of them come with a sense of, ‘This is what a relationship looks like,’ and maybe has never, ever seen a relationship that’s been different than that,” he told CTV News Edmonton.

Strive is a 16-week course and Frederick said for participants the opportunity to share experiences can be life changing.

“Many of them have never once been in a situation where they could share freely about how they actually feel and what they’ve struggled with,” he said.

“So they’re able to finally speak about some of those things and to take accountability for some of their own contributions.”

The centre’s manager of therapy and mental health services said she has seen an increase in people seeking help with tumultuous relationships.

“It’s hard to know if the issue has really increased or if people are just sharing more about it now and it’s coming out of the homes,” said Elsie Lobo.

The centre offers drop-in counselling, same-day bookings and subsidized services for low-income Albertans.

“From there they can plan with a therapist what they might need. If they need to safety plan right away or they’re worried about things getting violent, then we can help them navigate how to manage that,” Lobo said.

Breaking the cycle

As someone who comes from a life of trauma, Hall said prevention is key to breaking the cycle of abuse.

“That’s exactly what Inspire is. It is a preventative program to give kids the tools they need to respect themselves and those around them.”

The school program is being funded through a one-time provincial grant and officials say if the money is not extended past 2026, it will turn to community fundraising to continue.

“It’s all about prevention because it’s a whole lot more expensive and exhausting when you’re trying to save people after the damage has been done,” Hall added.