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In addition to drawing from evidence-based practices in clinical psychology, counselling psychology, and community psychology, the curriculum incorporates crucial skills such as becoming an active bystander, internet safety, and critical thinking. Integrated within the curriculum are impactful clips from the ground-breaking documentary "PLAYGROUND: The Child Sex Trade in America," shedding light on the harsh realities of trafficking in the US. By empowering students with the knowledge and skills to recognize and respond effectively to risky situations, the curriculum becomes a potent ally in safeguarding against potential harm, enabling students to cultivate healthy connections and fostering a heightened awareness to protect themselves from exploitative relationships.
Increasing students’ knowledge of systemic causes of sexual exploitation to help them identify and navigate risky situations.
Cultivating understanding of what healthy, safe relationships look and feel like.
Fostering mental health, safety skills, and bystander intervention practices to build resilience and community.
A critical part of prevention education is knowing where to get, and how to give, help. Results support the effectiveness of this curriculum in increasing students’ confidence, knowledge, and skills to recognize signs of risk, and get help. This includes knowing how to keep themselves as well as others safe, including providing bystander interventions and awareness of safety resources.
After participating in the Healthy Relationships Curriculum, students are significantly more aware of sex trafficking, and the actions that they themselves can take to prevent it. Students also demonstrate an increased capacity for empathic concern for vulnerable populations in general, and victims of sex trafficking in particular.
After participating in the Healthy Relationships Curriculum, students reported significantly increased levels of knowledge, including how their actions on social media could contribute to their risk, and skills to keep themselves safe.
After participating in the Healthy Relationships Curriculum, students reported significantly increased levels of knowledge, including how their actions on social media could contribute to their risk, and skills to keep themselves safe.
In alignment with CASEL framework
In alignment with the National Health Education Standards
In alignment with the CDC National Standards
In alignment with American School Counselor Association Standards
The curriculum begins by exploring the roots of exploitation in society, particularly in the context of trafficking, establishing a foundation for learning everyday skills like setting boundaries, help-seeking, internet safety, and critical thinking. Culminating with a call to action, students are encouraged to actively contribute ideas on fostering safer communities for themselves and their peers.
The foundation for an effective classroom environment is laid out, which will allow us to explore topics including vulnerability, privilege, oppression, and abuse. We begin to talk about social and political topics, engage in community building activities, and discuss our classroom agreements that center on participation, listening, and respect.
We cover the broad topics of power, privilege, oppression, and vulnerability in society. The purpose of this lesson is to equip students with a vocabulary to discuss these issues; we will be using and building on this vocabulary throughout the unit. We are starting off this way because in order to truly understand the dynamics around risk, it’s important to look at sexual exploitation and trafficking not as an isolated action but as a problem closely linked to the way power operates in our culture and society, in addition to our relationships.
The discussion of vulnerability continues through activities about consent and healthy relationships. Students are first provided with an opportunity to unpack what it really means to maintain interpersonal boundaries, with an emphasis on dynamics of power, privilege, and vulnerability. Students then discuss healthy relationships, by considering how they feel when they are in healthy relationships. We underscore the fact that there are many different types of relationships (romantic, platonic, professional, familial, friend), and they can all have characteristics of both healthy and unhealthy relationships.
We start by asking: what are unhealthy relationships, and what does it mean when boundaries are not respected? Students will also create safety plans by identifying trustworthy adults they can talk to if they believe themselves or someone else to be in an unsafe situation. Scenarios that are discussed include forms of sexual assault, exploitation, and sex trafficking.
Opportunities are provided for students to learn and use new vocabulary, read with purpose, and work together as a team to decipher myth from fact on important information regarding child sexual exploitation and trafficking. The intention of this lesson is to give students facts that will empower them to feel knowledgeable about the material and to encourage them to be change-makers by refusing to perpetuate these myths.
Students will participate in activities that encourage their critical, educated consumption of media content. Through reflection and discussion, students will be encouraged to interrogate the content of pop culture and the media. Additionally, students will be asked to consider whether or not the messages that this content communicates are accurate and productive. Solutions for societal problems will be solicited throughout.
Students’ wellbeing and community are promoted via a discussion of bullying, cyberbullying, and abuse (including sextortion). Drawing on content about healthy relationships and consent, students learn about different ways of effectively responding when they see someone being bullied or abused. Additionally, students identify barriers to action and then brainstorm ways to get around them.
For their final lessons, student groups design and implement a capstone project. The goal of this project is to inform, educate, and advocate in their school community. Some students choose to go further, hosting in cooperation with Nest, their our student-led Forums.
Current data about child sexual exploitation and trafficking reveals critical determinants for risk, including a significant relationship between emotional intelligence and protective factors in preventing exploitation and fostering resilience. As an evidence-based intervention, the Nest Program is built on proven methodologies from education, clinical psychology, counseling psychology, and community psychology.
We nurture each child’s self-awareness and inspire them to explore their feelings, express their ideas, and establish boundaries, as we know that these are the most fundamental resources for safety and fulfillment.
We depend on allied adults to form circles of support and bonds of trust where young people remain centered in safe, expansive places that provide for their growth and healthy development.
Each traumatic experience is unique to each individual involved. We listen and affirm. We encourage voice and choice for trauma victims while modeling mutual trust and respect in interpersonal interactions.
Easy to navigate, up-to-date teacher portal with all lesson materials, handouts, and support resources.
Self-paced asynchronous training specifically crafted to support implementation
Available for additional cost.
Regular virtual office hours available for campus staff seeking implementation support.
For students and/or school staff. Learn more about Nest Workshops.
Nest reduces barriers for implementation through time-efficient educator trainings with concrete takeaways and an incredibly easy to use teacher portal.
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