Turning Points Network

Offering

Bringing in the Bystander® High School

Location

Claremont, New Hampshire
Sullivan County

Situation

Turning Points Network (TPN) is one of 12-member programs of the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence (Coalition), serving Sullivan County. In addition to crisis and support services, they provide education and community outreach programs for students from Pre-K through college.

The Senior Prevention Educator at Turning Points Network, Kerry Rochford Hague, first learned about Soteria Solutions’ Bringing in the Bystander® High School Curriculum through the Coalition. Previously, they had researched and tried other education programs targeting high school students, but consistently found they needed to be tweaked or modified to suit their prevention philosophy and best practices in both healthy relationships education and abuse prevention. All programs were “almost, but not quite” what they were looking for, requiring more time and resources, neither of which were plentiful.

As they learned more about Bringing in the Bystander (BITB) High School, the following were especially important factors in their assessment:

An evidenced-based curriculum developed with input from high school students
The use of intentional language that aligned with their prevention philosophy
Inclusion of gender stereotypes, cultural impact and bystander focus
‘Packaged’ and ready to be implemented

While it was not a pre-requisite, the staff at TPN appreciated that the BITB curriculum was developed in their own state of New Hampshire.

The Soteria Solution

The Coalition purchased the three-year license for TPN to then drive the implementation, with the first focus on Stevens High School (SHS), the only public high school in Claremont, New Hampshire. This small New England town is nestled at the foothills of Mount Ascutney, with a high school population of approximately 480 students.

A challenge for TPN in the past had been the limited availability in the traditional high school curriculum to incorporate education regarding relationship abuse and sexual assault. A critical success factor was to find the time in the school day to implement the program as well as having a champion at the high school to greatly increase the likelihood of the program’s success.

Turning Points Network was fortunate to have a guidance counselor at Stevens High School who embraced and championed the implementation. He worked closely with their staff to coordinate the scheduling and obtain staff nominations of a diverse group of student leaders. The pandemic stalled the momentum but with his support and the team at Turning Points Network, the BITB High School curriculum at the high school ramped back up.

The implementation of the seven-week BITB High School Curriculum was initially focused on sophomores. The students met weekly in their advisory period to complete the curriculum facilitated by TPN staff. Sophomores were strategically chosen for the initial roll-out because first year high school students were getting acclimated to high school and had programs helping them make that transition while juniors and seniors had programs focused on college preparation to plan their futures beyond high school. There was available space for the sophomores in their schedule and the Advisory block worked well.

When TPN found that they were losing key time to implement the curriculum due to the time slot also coinciding with school announcements, the Soteria Solutions team provided modifications to the curriculum to fit within the time slots, while still maintaining the integrity of the material.

Today, BITB High School is offered to both 9th and 10th grade students as part of their advisory periods. Once the curriculum is completed, TPN staff meet with the students every other week.

A Homemade Add-On: PB & J

To assess the impact, TPN educators completed a feedback survey after the initial rollout to the sophomore students. Many students expressed the desire to continue to learn and apply their newly acquired skills of being a positive bystander. Students also voiced that there are many barriers to getting involved as a positive bystander and that they need time to practice their new skills.

Student survey responses included the following:

“I want to learn more ways to get involved without feeling uncomfortable.”

“I want to learn more ways to deescalate situations.”

This feedback resulted in a student-led and branded program, ”Positive Bystander Journey” known as PB&J, to extend their journey throughout their high school experience.

The group represents a diverse student leadership group who meet every other week, practicing how to be a positive bystander as many noted in the feedback survey how hard this can be.

“It can be scary and stressful, but don’t give up and you could be helpful.”

“It’s better to calmly think than get involved in a mad way.”

Some of these student leaders helped staff an awareness table during lunch. Students completed a brief survey about why it’s hard to get involved as a positive bystander and then got to spin a wheel to win a small prize.

The surveys revealed the top reasons for NOT getting involved:

Worried that saying something will make the situation worse/escalate the problem
Social pressure to ignore it or join in the disrespect
There’s so much disrespect, people don’t notice it anymore
Not feeling like one person can make a difference
Concerned you’ll get in trouble if you try to help

This feedback helps the student leaders know where to focus energy and skill building.

As Kerry reiterates:

“The first key step is to identify that a behavior is not ok; then the next is to develop the skills to know when and how to intervene safely and effectively. That is not easy for anyone, so PB&J offers a safe and ongoing opportunity to practice, to lead change in the school and in the community.”

Results

Stevens High School in Claremont, New Hampshire has embraced the important role that a positive bystander has in effecting change to create and maintain a safe and supportive high school community for all.

Bi-annual youth risk behavior surveys (YRBS) will be released in 2024 for the 2023 school year’s data. Although the effect of the pandemic on the results will make the most recent survey difficult to compare with 2021. The staff at TPN notes that among many impacts of the pandemic, students are less comfortable sharing their thoughts and feelings in a mixed-group setting. Through the scenarios in BITB, they are finding their voices to choose an intervention approach that is best suited to who they are.

The post-pandemic programming was reenergized by the addition of Stephen Pascucci, the school’s first Restorative Justice Coordinator, to the BITB Team. Stephen has carried the baton to ensure this programming becomes part of the fabric of prevention and school climate work at SHS.

"I greatly appreciate BITB’s ability to get students’ attention, engaging them in serious conversations that matter to them. I look ahead with excitement as we continue to collaborate with Turning Points Network, confident our efforts will reap big dividends for our students and make an impact beyond their high school experience,” said Stephen Pascucci.

Recently as part of Granite State Respect Week (GSRW) the PB&J leaders created a scavenger hunt with clues to find faculty and administrators within the high school whom the group had identified as safe resources to seek out and speak with when needed. GSRW is part of a Teen Dating Violence Awareness month-long initiative through the Coalition and the 12-member programs. Based on a "spirit week" there is a different theme each day that highlights recognizing signs of healthy/unhealthy relationships and resources for help.

“It was really inspiring watching the students embrace the tasks for Granite State Respect Week and personalize them. Their energy and ambition made it clear that they were excited to share information on healthy relationships with their peers. Young people want to talk about relationship issues and want to address inequities in our culture – they just need support in getting there” noted TPN Prevention Educator, Jen Gallagher.

Anecdotal results to date support that the students in this small community are fully aware of how unhealthy behaviors have been normalized in our culture. This is an important step in identifying inappropriate behaviors and with the BITB HS curriculum, learning and practicing how to intervene safely and effectively. The second layer of the program is their homemade PB&J, the opportunity to continue reinforcing the curriculum over the rest of one’s high school journey to contribute to a safe and supportive community in Claremont while applying those skills wherever their journey takes them.

Learn more about Bringing in the Bystander High School Curriculum.

Learn more about Soteria Solutions’ programs for high school.