About ReAct
Workshops, Assemblies, Trainings, and Other Speaking Engagements
Topics
Don't Make Me Repeat Myself Advocacy Youth Training
For More Information

Printable ReAct Brochure (PDF, 121 KB)
Online ReAct Booking Form or Printable ReAct Booking Form (PDF, 149 KB)

Successes

Since its inception in 2001, ReAct's has delivered its services to thousands of youth, educators, and service providers. Its youth-friendly, peer-based model has been tested and found to be effective. Feedback from youth workshop participants has been overwhelmingly positive, and the ReAct program model has been so recognized as a best practice that it has been reproduced in York Region through a project partnership with Social Services Network. Social Services Network works with and serves diverse South Asian communities in York Region, and the project partnership was funded by the Canadian Women's Foundation.

Advisory Committee

ReAct's programming is informed by its Advisory Committee of youth, educators, and youth service providers. It informs ReAct's curriculum, helps evaluate the effectiveness of the program's work, shares current youth and educator needs within the school system with respect to violence, and helps to set program priorities and goals for the future.

Workshops, Assemblies, Trainings, and Other Speaking Engagements

Youth Workshops

ReAct offers an array of youth-friendly, youth-created, and youth-led workshops on a variety of topics. They provide an empowering space for youth to participate in the process of learning in a way that validates their personal experiences. All youth workshops include interactive activities (e.g. art, drama, media clips, games) and an interview process to ensure the workshop meets the needs of youth participants. Workshops can compliment existing school curriculum and youth programming, and Peer Facilitators can return for follow-up sessions, if requested. Workshops are conducted with groups of no more than 30 youth, and fees are as follows:

• Mini workshops (1 to 1.5 hours): $75
• Full workshops (3 hours): $150

School Assemblies

ReAct offers interactive and engaging school assemblies on specific topics. Assemblies are conducted with a maximum of 250 students and are a minimum of 45 minutes in length and a maximum of 1.5 hours. Fees for assemblies are $300.

Trainings and Other Speaking Engagements

ReAct also offers training sessions on a variety of topics for service providers, educators, and community workers, as well as speakers for other engagements such as panels. Training sessions are a minimum of 3 hours in length, conducted with a maximum of 30 participants and include:

• A pre-training survey process for participants to express their training needs and desires
• Interactive and group activities to involve participants and allow them to share their knowledge
• Essential information about the issues, including definitions of different forms of violence within the continuum of violence and warning signs
• A gender-based analysis within an anti-oppression framework, understanding gender dynamics of violence against women, girls, and youth and how violence effects people differently depending on their social identities (e.g. gender, race, class, immigration status, sexuality, ability)
• Solutions and strategies to address violence in the lives of diverse youth
• What to look for: practical de-escalation tips to prevent youth violence and challenge youth to make a difference
• Written resources for participants to take away with them
• Minutes of group discussions during the training to capture the ideas and expressed needs of participants
• A post-training survey process for participants to share what they learned, with results shared with training organizers should it be desired

ReAct trainings and other speaking engagements are tailored to specific requests. Please contact us for more information about formats and fees.

Topics

Assembly, Workshop, and Training Topics

Speak Your Truth: Empowerment for Young Women (girl-only groups): Helps young women learn what empowerment is and helps them deal with social pressures that might hinder their sense of empowerment. Looks at understanding physical, spiritual, financial, sexual, and emotional boundaries.

Going Beyond the Massacre: December 6th Remembrance: Explores connections between sexism, daily occurrences of violence against women, and the December 6th Montreal Massacre. Includes media literacy activities that examines different news perspectives in coverage following the Massacre and encourages critical thinking in all portrayals of violence against women.

Why the Looks? Bullying Between Young Women (girl-only groups): Explores verbal, emotional, and physical violence between girls and young women outside of same-sex dating relationships. Identifies how anger and aggression between young women is expressed and explores underlying causes. Emphasis is placed on developing healthy ways of relating and ending bullying between girls.

The Bully Factor: Addresses different types of bullying (e.g. sexual, gender-based, sexual and physical). Brainstorms how youth can resist and challenge this bullying in their lives.

What's Love Got to do with it? Dating Violence: Examines violence in youth dating relationships, including sexual assault, coercive sexuality, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and stalking. Discusses healthy and unhealthily relationships and how youth can be allies to their peers.

Tough Guise: Masculinity (boy-only groups): Looks at male stereotypes and links them to gender violence. Includes a media literacy component on how masculinity is portrayed in popular culture and how men can build healthy relationships, become male allies, and support women experiencing violence.

Workshop and Training Topics

Ending the Silence: Violence at Home: Explores the impact of violence that occurs at home (e.g. physical, emotional, sexual and financial abuse). Discusses ways youth can resist family violence at home, how they can get help, and strategies to help peers dealing with family violence. Available in versions for junior high youth, secondary school youth, young moms, and newcomer youth.

What's Love Got to do with it? Dating Violence for LGBTQ Youth: Examines violence in lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer youth dating relationships, including sexual assault, coercive sexuality, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and stalking. Discusses healthy and unhealthily relationships and how youth can be allies to their peers.

Only Yes Means Yes! Sexual Assault/Date Rape: Addresses violence such as partner rape, pressure to be sexually active, and the use of date rape drugs. Explores the impact of gender stereotypes and peer pressure on relationships.

Our Power, Our Privilege: Intro 2 Anti-Oppression: Introduces principles and practices of anti-oppression and explains multiple forms of oppression. Interactive activities, media, and art are used to demonstrate ways that oppression effects youth uniquely, with respect to diverse identities such as gender, race, class, immigration status, sexuality, ability, and religion. Also includes self-reflective activities to help participants personally recognize oppression, power, and privilege.

Feeding or Starving the Hype: Youth At-Risk and Violence: Links violence against women with issues many marginalized youth face, such as harassment, racism, bullying, involvement with the law, and gang violence. Focuses on identifying key issues and brainstorming ways of dealing with this social violence.

Speak Your Truth: Empowerment for Young Mothers (girl-only groups): Helps young mothers identify and build upon healthy dating relationships. Explores what young mothers need in relationships and looks at physical, spiritual, financial, sexual, and emotional boundaries.

Love or Obsession? Stalking: Explores the difference between romance, courtship, and persistent, unwanted attention. And helps youth identify and work towards healthy relationships.

Gender-Based Violence 101: Introduces definitions and issues related to gender-based violence against girls and women in general, all within an anti-oppression framework.

Don't Make Me Repeat Myself is a special advocacy training for youth on issues of gender-based violence. Grounded in an anti-oppression framework, it focusses on how young people can work together and advocate for change to make their communities safer for diverse young women. Although it is geared towards youth in the City of Toronto, it can be adapted to youth who live in other locations.

Developed through METRAC's Youth Alliance Project, Don't Make Me Repeat Myself is most appropriate for youth over 15 years of age who already have some level of leadership, anti-violence, and/or anti-oppression skills and training, whether formal or informal. It can be delivered in a minimum length of time of 3 hours. Please contact us for more information about fees and training delivery.

For more information about ReAct, contact METRAC at 416-397-0258 or react@metrac.org.