Teens learn to recognise danger

GETTING INFORMED: Chanel College students pose with Masterton police officers during a workshop at the school on healthy relationships, called Loves-Me-Not. Ciaran Madden (left), Nicholas Smith, Caitlin Austin, Constable Keely Riwai-Couch, Detective Senior Sergeant Scott Miller, Emily Farley, Katie Craig and Sophie Foote. PHOTO/ANDREW BONALLACK

A young woman in a Dunedin student bar looks the worse for wear. A man approaches and starts talking. He's friendly as he eases her unsteadily towards the door. She's drunk and looks confused. It doesn't look right.

If it doesn't happen to you, it could happen to someone you know, say police.

That's one of the messages in the Loves-Me-Not workshop, a police programme giving teenagers the skills to recognise the danger signs in relationships and socialising.

The workshop had its Wairarapa debut at Chanel College this week.

It is a collaboration with schools, police, Stopping Violence and the Sophie Elliott Foundation, aimed at students who are on the verge of leaving their hometown support networks for work or university.

On Thursday Masterton police ran the workshop with 60 Year 12 and Year 13 students, plus staff, at Chanel College.

Detective Senior Sergeant Scott Miller said they are focusing on 16- to 17-year- olds, talking about healthy sexual relationships, violence in relationships, and what they should be looking for and aware of.

"It's about prevention, about seeing the signs," he said.

He said the workshop also talks about watching a situation happen from a bystander's point of view.

"You see a young woman, having drinks. We take people through the steps, what they could have done.

"It's about having the confidence to do something, step in, for their friends."

Year 13 dean Kathryn Miles said courses like these are important for their students.

"Many of them will be leaving home in the next year or so, becoming independent.

"They will go to work in Wellington, go to university, we've got kids going to Auckland, Dunedin.

"It's a long way from home - you can feel very isolated.

"They don't have those adults, giving that extra eye, giving them strategies."

Roland Hermans, police advisor to schools, said the workshop, which had been running at Onslow College for five years, is now trialling at 20 schools in the country, including Chanel College.

"It's not just passing on knowledge.

"It's about the students, looking at ways to take action for themselves or as bystanders."

Next term Wairarapa College will do the workshop.

Teachers and staff get training as well, he said.

"That's the strength of the programme, it's upskilling everyone involved.

"It's more than students becoming aware - it's the staff as well."