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| Savanna Kellogg |
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Youth Training Youth
Pilot project taps teens to teach peers about healthy relationships
To high school student Savanna Kellogg, the issue of bullying is very personal.
“I was bullied all my life because I was different,” says the 16-year-old junior at Tillamook Options Program.
A former student at Nestucca High School, Kellogg said it got worse as she entered her teens, when she “came out” and let people know she was a lesbian.
“Everyone hated me,” she said. “They put up a petition to get rid of me. They wrote (profanity) in lipstick on my locker, telling me to get out.”
Kellogg said she got through it by staying centered.
“It hurt, but I kept my head high,” she recalled.
Now Kellogg hopes to use her personal experience to help others as part of a Youth Training Youth project initiated by Tillamook County Women’s Resource Center. The goal of the program is to use student leaders to teach other teens about bullying, domestic violence and healthy relationships.
Kellogg is one of a group of students at TOPS taking part in training to prepare them for their leadership roles. Also taking part is 18-year-old senior Brandy Reed.
“I was bullied by my sister’s boyfriend when I lived in Salem,” Reed explains. “Because of that, I always wanted to help prevent other kids from having to go through it.”
TOPS teacher Mary McGuiness said Kellogg and Reed were chosen to take part because of their leadership skills. Also selected for the program are four students from Tillamook High School and a couple from Tillamook School District’s teen parent program.
According to Kathleen Marvin, executive director of the Women’s Resource Center, the program is a pilot project. The teens are receiving six weeks of training covering the topics of oppression, bullying and dating violence prevention, healthy and unhealthy relationships, bystander intervention and allies, healing and how to make a good presentation. Then the student leaders will be given the opportunity to speak to classes at their schools, under the supervision of a teacher.
Marvin said one goal will be to encourage youths to teach other youths in the years ahead, helping to make the program sustainable.
“It’s a work in progress,” she explained. “We want this be youth directed. We want it to resonate with young people.”
Kellogg and Reed believe it will be effective.
“I think we will be able to connect with other kids. They will listen to us more than they might an adult. We can talk the same language,” Kellogg explained.
“I really hope we can have an impact,” said Reed. “I hope that if we can show them what an unhealthy relationship looks like, maybe they will see it in their own life and change.”
Women’s Resource Center Prevention Coordinator Terri Niemann, who is helping to train the youth leaders, said she is very excited about the program.
“Anytime you get peers involved in the process, kids listen,” she said. “The kids will develop their own PowerPoint presentation. They’ll go into classrooms and lecture. We’ll give them a lot of freedom, while still overseeing them. There may be some wonderful positive fallout from this. We want this to be sustainable.”
McGuiness said this is the second year Niemann has taught TOPS students about healthy relationships and she believes students do listen.
“I have seen the kids asking more questions about their friends and themselves, asking for advice. The classes open the door to conversation.”
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