Key Area 2: Healthy Relationships --> a personal story

There are three key areas that CSHC is focused on: Healthy Bodies, Healthy Relationships and Healthy Communities. These focus areas speak to the core of our work; they support our vision for the community and the mission we are on to achieve it.

In this series of blogs, we present some of our success stories that highlight a program from each of our three focus areas.

 

In this blog, we look at a "Healthy Relationships" personal story. We believe good relationships and sexual health are inextricably linked. Our emphasis on healthy relationships means that our programs are having an impact on the issues of bullying, homophobia, and violence prevention, just to name a few. Whether it’s with parents, professionals or youth, our programs discuss healthy decision-making, communication, self-esteem and awareness of your own boundaries and values.

 

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Healthy Relationships:  Leslie’s Story - WiseGuyz

 

“It’s all boys all the time,” laughs Leslie McRae, Vice Principal at Sherwood School.

 

Leslie McRae, Vice Principal at Sherwood School
(photo credit: Evolution New Media)

Those boys are a small group of grade nine students taking part in the WiseGuyz program at the school. Once a week they meet in a designated classroom for part of the school day and Tristan from Calgary Sexual Health Centre facilitates the program.

 

To someone peeking inside the classroom, sometimes it looks like a regular healthy sexuality class, sometimes it looks like boys roughhousing and joking around. But something more important is really going on.

 

This is a program that teaches boys about consent and healthy relationships, not just STIs and anatomy. It’s challenging the boys’ views of masculinity and teaching them to look critically at the media messages they see every day. It’s tackling bullying and homophobia. It’s a program about respect and empathy.

 

“This is really the only thing out there that’s just for boys,” says McRae. “It’s so important to have something directed just to them about things they wonder about, delivered by people who can address those things.”

 

“They have somebody who’s open to hearing things that they’re talking about and lets them be silly and ask weird questions.”

 

She recently saw the impact of the program when an RCMP officer came in to talk to the school.

 

“It was a fairly deep presentation; he talks about things like suicide and bullying, family issues that you don’t talk about. The boys who stayed behind after the assembly to shake his hand and say thank you were the WiseGuyz.”

 

“They grow from the program, and they feel more confident,” she says. “They start to look at bigger issues, rather than just ‘if it’s my issue’ – that’s really what I see from their actions.”

 

McRae also says that one of the most unexpected outcomes for her is the bonds the boys make with one another: “There are boys who are friends because of the program who never would’ve been friends without it.”

 

When asked why the boys want to be there and keep coming back, her answer is simple.

 

“They know they’re valued,” she says. “For some boys it helps keep them in school, helps keep them engaged, helps keep them connected to somebody who, if or when things go south in the future, they have one more positive adult role model to look to.”

 

McRae can’t say enough good things about the program and looks forward to working with WiseGuyz again in the new school year.

 

“It’s hard to be a teenager, whether you’re a girl or a boy,” says McRae. “The more people you have in your life telling you positive things, helping you be informed, creating a structure you can access resources from – it’s not such a big unknown world.”

Key Area 1: Healthy Bodies --> a personal story

There are three key areas that CSHC is focused on: Healthy Bodies, Healthy Relationships and Healthy Communities. These focus areas speak to the core of our work; they support our vision for the community and the mission we are on to achieve it.

In this series of blogs, we present some of our success stories  that highlight a program from each of our three focus areas.

 

In this blog, we look at a "Healthy Bodies" story:

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Eve’s Story: Reclaiming Healthy Sexuality

She started the program wondering why she was even there. She left wondering what she would’ve done without it.

“Eve* started the program thinking she didn’t really need it,” says Becky Van Tassel, Training Centre Coordinator with Calgary Sexual Health Centre. Eve was taking part in the Reclaiming Healthy Sexuality program as part of an addictions treatment program.

Reclaiming Healthy Sexuality is a Calgary Sexual Health Centre program that fills a critical need. Aimed at women who have had negative sexual experiences, Reclaiming is an intensive program that helps women look at their own bodies and sexuality in a new, healthier way. In Eve’s case, she experienced sexual assault as an adult.

“Often it empowers women to address something they’ve never talked about,” Van Tassel says. “We provide the tools and information so that women can make healthy choices for themselves in the future.”

Talking about their bodies is one of the most important parts of the program. From discussing anatomy to exploring how to be aware of your own body and its reactions, clients like Eve benefit from the group discussions.



Healthy decision-making with
"Head Heart Body"

The program is only offered to those already accessing social programs, so participants can receive follow-up support as they move forward. Van Tassel admits that it’s difficult work for the women involved. One aspect of the program called Head, Heart, Body helps participants make healthy decisions about sexuality.

“At the end of it, women acknowledge that they may not have made a decision that way before and it can be uncomfortable, but they know that in the future they have a tool so they can aim to not regret future decisions.”

One of the most powerful parts of the program is not what the facilitators teach the participants, but what they teach other.

“They really bond over their common experiences and help each other,” says Van Tassel. “We see really diverse groups and you often see older women sharing their wisdom or younger women helping the older participants see things in a different light. And then it builds their own self esteem that they’ve had something valuable to share with someone else and they could give support. ”

“We talk about the fact that regardless of what you’ve experienced, there is hope and the way you feel about sex and sexuality can change,” says Van Tassel. “Women can really leave with a sense of hope.”

*names have been changed.

 

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Healthy Bodies

When we understand our bodies, we take care of them, feel good about them, and make good decisions about our sexual health.

We are the only non-profit organization in Calgary delivering comprehensive programs and services that address sexual health issues. Our programs emphasize the need to be aware of your own body and take care of it, whether that means using birth control and getting tested for STIs,  or reclaiming your own sexuality.