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The National Association of Students Against Violence Everywhere
(SAVE) is proud to be a
founding partner, along with the
Guidance Channel, of the
National Youth Violence Prevention
Campaign. The goal of this campaign is to raise awareness and
to educate students, teachers, school administrators,
counselors, school resource officers, school staff, parents,
and the public on effective ways to prevent or reduce youth Violence.
This weeklong national education initiative will involve activities that
demonstrate the positive role young people can have in making
their school and community safer.
The campaign website, www.nyvpw.org, serves as the crossroads
to the campaign and provides countless resources to prepare for the event,
including the official campaign Action Kit that serves as a step-by-step planning guide,
suggestions for how each sector of the community can support the campaign, a
ctivity ideas, links to over 40 national organizations sponsoring the event,
articles and interviews on violence prevention, and much, much more!
This year we are delighted to offer you FREE resources to support your lessons and
activities during National Youth Violence Prevention Week.
CLICK HERE to find links to short video clips
and PDF files that focus on the strategies highlighted during our event.
Mark your Calendar for upcoming National Youth Violence Prevention Week Campaigns:
March 23-March 27, 2009
March 22-March 26, 2010
March 23-March 25, 2011
March 19-March 23, 2012
2009 CHALLENGES
Each day of the week will highlight a specific challenge to prevent youth Violence and
will be sponsored by a national premier youth-serving
organization. The challenges highlighted for 2008 were
proposed by the campaign's Youth Advisory Board and will
include:
Day 1: Promote Respect and Tolerance
Sponsored by Teaching Tolerance
Day 2: Manage Your Anger
Sponsored by the American School Counselor Association
Day 3: Resolve Conflicts Peacefully
Sponsored by the Association For Conflict Resolution
Day 4: Support Safety
Sponsored by the National Youth Court Center
Day 5: Unite in Action
Sponsored by Youth Service America
SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES
Awareness Activities
Many activities can be conducted before National Youth Violence
Prevention Week to bring awareness to your upcoming week long
emphasis:
Conduct a teacher workshop and share tips, lesson plans, and ideas for teachers to use during the week.
Create awareness posters that list the daily activities that will occur during week.
Provide listings to the school paper, school announcements, and in-house television programming announcing when and what activities will occur.
Before school opens on Monday morning, place purple and orange ribbons on lockers. Place purple ribbons on all lockers except the fourth locker where you place an orange ribbon. This represents the statistic that one in every four students will be affected by Violence this year. You can also place orange and purple ribbons on light poles and trees.
Day 1: Promote Respect & Tolerance
Conduct an essay contest on respect and tolerance. Have the winning essay read at an event or over morning announcements.
Reach out to the unreached. Challenge all students to get to know at least one student they do not know.
Have a class discussion/role play on the importance of showing respect.
Use teambuilding activities that utilize sharing and group participation.
Identify examples of respect and lack of respect for others in social studies textbooks and other materials.
Do research papers on different cultures and how they show respect to one another.
Hold a cultural day where dress, activities and decorations reflect different cultures from around the world.
Have students pair up with a student from a different culture and allow them to "shadow" each other for a day so they will each see what it is like to walk in someone else's shoes.
Day 2: Manager Your Anger, Don't Let it Manage You!
Provide students free hot chocolate with the theme "Don't Let Anger Heat You Up" before school.
After studying anger management skills, conduct a contest between grade levels to see how many students will sign nonviolence pledges and remain fight-free.
Sponsor a decorate-a-door contest on ways to handle stress or manage anger for homeroom classes.
Participate in simulation activities such as theft, being bullied, having a personnel possession harmed, and discuss positives to respond to these incidents.
Have students in each class or at a designated area give suggestions on safe ways to "cool down" when angered.
Create drawings, posters or other signs showing that anger is natural and a normal part of life... but Violence is not.
Have each student give accounts of how anger hurt them so students will understand what can happen if they don't manage their anger.
Have students come up with signs or codes to be able to communicate when they are angry so their anger will not get out of control (i.e. putting up your hand to let people know you are angry).
Day 3: Resolve Conflicts Peacefully
Challenge all students and faculty to be fight free. Set up a reward system to acknowledge success.
Establish a peer mediation program at your school. Kick off with an assembly with role plays.
Create a public service announcement on the importance of managing conflicts peacefully.
Have students observe conflicts in all aspects of life over a 24 hour period. Ask them to record their observations and have a discussion on ways to safely resolve or manage the conflicts observed.
Have students brainstorm ways to be a good listener. Have students illustrate examples of being a good listener.
Have students role play conflicting situations and how to positively resolve the situations.
Day 4: Promote Safety
Conduct a safety-themed poster contest. Display and let students or faculty judge.
Invite local rescue workers to make presentations to students on personal safety, fire safety, or bicycle safety.
Prepare a school safety public information brochure or fact sheet.
Develop a suggestion box or phone line for suggestions to improve school safety or anonymous tips.
Coordinate a safety day with local rescue agencies providing exhibits and activities.
Setup a table or area where students can identify safe and unsafe places in their school or surrounding communities.
Volunteer to serve on School Safety Committee and encourage accurate school Violence incident reporting and tracking.
Day 5: Engage Yourself and Others in Practice
Organize a service project where all students and members of the community can come together and make a large impact in the school or community:
Community/school beautification campaign - graffiti and vandalized areas should be priorities.
Create a skit or lesson plan to be presented to your school or other schools/community agencies to spread the Violence prevention message.
Sponsor a "First Aid" event where students learn first aid techniques and participate in simulation activities that would prepare students to help others in situations of need.
Institute an "Adopt-A-Student" program where new students are paired with older students.
Start a school crime watch program. Consider including a student patrol that helps keep an eye on corridors, parking lots and a way for students to report anonymously.
Coordinate a fingerprinting afternoon at the local elementary school. Work with local law enforcement and parents to fingerprint young children.
Paint a peaceful mural on a building or sidewalk.
Hold a Violence prevention community event with information booths and safe activities for children.
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO SUPPORT THE CAMPAIGN!
- Review the campaign website www.nyvpw.org
and Action Kit
included on the website. Use this information to go out and plan activities during the
week with local schools, youth groups, after-school programs, etc.
- Post ideas and information on the campaign website's
message boards to help us get the conversations going there.
- Visit the Student Council website and connect with other
students to collaborate on the campaign. You can refer them to the
campaign website, as well as all of our sponsors sites for additional
resources.
- Reach out to members in our sponsors' organizations (school
counselors, teachers, school social workers, etc.).
- Check out our sponsors websites to learn about who they are and
how they support youth Violence prevention efforts. Take advantage of
all of the resources they have to offer!
- Encourage all other SAVE members and schools that you know of to
get involved in the campaign and suggest ways that they can help out
(letter campaign, planning events in their schools, reaching out to the
media, etc.)
- Send ecards to everyone you know to encourage them to
participate in the campaign.
- Send letters to your local, state, and national representatives
to ask them to support the campaign.
- Email us your ideas for the campaign!
Click the logo for more information.
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