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Respect and Connect

Relationships Australia Victoria

The Respect and Connect Healthy Relationships Program developes students' skills focusing on healthy relationships, gender equality, mental wellbeing, communication and managing emotions.

  • Vic

Pricing: Paid

Origin: Developed in Australia for Australian schooling contexts

Affiliations: Australian Counselling Association, Mediator Standards Board, National Mediator Accreditation System aligned; Australian Skills Quality Authority accredited

Product type: Program; Posters; Fact sheets; Student activities; Activity sheets; Presentation by an expert or speaker ; Whole school approach or initiative; Wellbeing monitoring service, platform or tool; External support services; Incursion, excursion or immersive experience; Learning modules

Contact details

Relationships Australia Victoria
ABN: 51 263 215 677

https://www.relationshipsvictoria.org.au/child-family-services/respect-connect/

ekaufman@rav.org.au

Focus areas

  • Positive relationships

  • Belonging and inclusion

  • Bullying and cyber-bullying

  • Mental health literacy and life skills

  • Self-regulation and engagement

  • Resilience and optimism

  • Self-esteem and body image

  • Respectful relationships and consent education

  • E-safety and digital literacy

Curriculum alignment

  • Health and PE

Prospective users

Audience: Whole school universal (Tier 1), Whole class universal (Tier 1)

Communities: Diverse cultures or language groups, First Nations

Context: School or centre-based

Main beneficiaries: Year 5, Year 6, Year 7, Year 8, Year 9

Delivery style: Delivered by program staff

Aims & approach

The Respect and Connect Healthy Relationships Program for Schools is a primary prevention initiative aimed at Years 5-9, delivering social and emotional learning, mental health promotion and family violence prevention education by highly skilled staff trained in youth mental health.

It aims to enhance students social and emotional skills and learning through a 4-session model and a whole of school approach, delivering class-based sessions on

  • Healthy, Unhealthy and Abusive Relationships,
  • Gender Equality and Stereotypes,
  • Emotional Awareness and Communication, and
  • How to Handle Conflict and Online Hate in the Real World and Online.

Info sessions for parents and teachers are also provided. Developing real world skills and modelling and learning healthy relating in the above areas is a vital protective factor for family violence for young people, can increase mental wellbeing, and can contribute to setting up a healthy template for how young people can relate in a healthy and safe way.

Costs are based on the model of sessions booked.

Implementation support

  • Access to professional facilitator, instructor or mentor

Evidence

The Respect and Connect framework relates to Change the Story, a shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women (2nd Ed, Our Watch). It is additionally informed by Strengths Based Practice, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy and Mindfulness Practice, (Linehan, 2024), Positive Psychology, Polyvagal Theory, (Porges, 2024), Attachment Theory (Garvey, 2024).