Teen & Youth Programs

YWCA NENY Teen and Youth Programs are designed to create safe spaces for the youth in our community. The programs help students work on building confidence and self-esteem, learn the signs of healthy vs unhealthy relationships, have discussions around mental health challenges, work on finding their voice, and promote self-discovery and expression.

Programs and Groups

• Healthy Relationships Groups – serves elementary, middle, and high school students
  • The Healthy Relationships Groups focus on educating youth on healthy/unhealthy behaviors while empowering them to challenge societal/cultural norms that contribute to teen dating violence.

• Conflict Resolution Groups – serves elementary, middle, and high school students
  • Conflict Resolution Groups are small groups that allow youth to enhance conflict resolution skills, confidence, and communication (family, friends, relationships, school, community, etc.)

• Affinity Groups – serves elementary, middle, and high school, female-identifying students
  • Provides a safe space for youth to discuss differences and internal and external challenges. This group helps youth to develop their identity, fosters self-esteem, and helps them find their voice. Examples of affinity spaces can be cultural, gender-based, LGBTQ+, etc.

• Guyanese Girl’s Empowerment Group – serves elementary, middle, and high school, female-identifying Guyanese students
  • The Guyanese Girl’s Empowerment Group provides a safe space for Guyanese girls to discuss cultural differences and mental health challenges. This group helps girls develop their identity, fosters self-esteem, and helps them find their voice.

• Boys Group – serves elementary & middle school, male-identifying students
  • Boys Group focuses on anger management and mindfulness with open discussion and activities on managing emotions, strengths, and healthy/unhealthy behaviors. Participants will explore how to redefine their strengths by rediscovering themselves.

• Help Save the Next Girl – serves elementary, middle, and high school, female-identifying students
  • Help Save the Next Girl focuses on empowering girls to make safe choices to protect themselves. Participants will have open discussions about topics that impact youth safety as well as developing skills such as trusting their intuition, increasing their self-esteem, and learning self-defense.

• Coaching Boys into Men – serves middle and high school, male-identifying student-athletes
  • Coaching Boys into Men is a prevention program that trains and motivates high school coaches to teach their young male-identified athletes healthy relationship skills and that violence never equals strength.

Trainings, Presentations, and Workshops

• Teen Dating Violence (TDV) For Adults –  serves adults who work with youth or who would like to be more informed
  • The Teen Dating Violence Training for adults provides information on TDV. It discusses risk and protective factors, long and short-term consequences, signs that a youth is experiencing/perpetrating TDV, and effective ways to respond to/address TDV with youth.
• Teen Dating Violence (TDV) – serves middle and high school students
  • The Teen Dating Violence Training provides information on TDV. This includes long and short-term consequences, healthy and unhealthy behaviors, red flags, and resources.
• In Their Shoes Workshop – serves ages 14+
  • This workshop is experimental learning about teen dating violence. Participants become one of six characters based on the experiences of real teens. They read scenarios and make choices about what they would do. Participants will engage in a guided discussion about the experience and key topics from the workshop.

For more information and resources on dating violence, visit joinonelove.org or loveisrespect.org