Reflection as a group:
We started out with the idea of creating an assembly that would teach students about assault and domestic violence. But we soon realized that the assembly could only be a one year thing so we started thinking of ways we could create a lasting impact at the school. So we talked with Randy from Safe Place and came up with the solution of training PALS about assault and relationship violence. By doing that we were teaching both juniors and seniors and in turn our middle school PALees. We also set it up to where Safe Place would come back in the years to come to train the PALS classes during the first six weeks. We thought that this was a really good plan B and it turned out to be really great. On top of that we decided to do a donation drive to thank Safe Place for all the work they did with us. Overall we think that what we did end up doing was really good and we are happy with the turnout. If we could do anything different we probably would have given more time to setting up the assembly because we think it would have been really fun to set up and wouldve helped a larger number of students.
Personal Reflections:
Megan:
When my capstone group first approached this project, we didn't know what we were going to do. We had a lot of ideas to choose from but we still weren't quite sure what we wanted to do, but it wasn't until we narrowed it down and figured out how we would execute the project when we decided that we wanted to work with Safe Place and work with the issue of sexual assault. Since we started this project, I always felt like this was a prevalent issue in the city and in the world, so, going so bold as to make a project out of awareness of it was something that we wanted to make people think about and have a lasting effect from. At first we wanted to hold a week of awareness where specific days during the week would have different sub topics of sexual assault, but we realized that was less realistic and for the project and moved to a different idea and that was to hold an assembly for the student body and create awareness by working with Safe Place on being trained how to talk to students about this touchy issue, but over the course of the project, we realized that the most impact we could do to best benefit the people involved in the school and in Safe Place, we decided to host a donation drive to help provide supplies for the people in need that they sponsor and help.
This project has opened my eyes to this issue of sexual assault in the community and the world. This issue seems to be pushed under the rug and not ever talked about because it is such a bold project to start in a high school class. There were things about this issue that I hadn't known before and it was interesting to learn all of the different things about sexual assault. For this project, it was really important to me to make such an emphasis on the fact that sexual assault is not just one-sided and doesn't only include women as the victims. I made it very clear that it can happen to anyone. Although it doesn't occur as much in men as it does women, it still happens to men and that was important to express in the making of this project and the awareness that we brought to the students. Another thing that was crucial to this project was the amount of expression that we had towards wanting to keep everything about this project equal and fair so that no one got offended because of something that they might have thought we were trying to insinuate with the making of this project. Because it is such a touchy subject, it was important that we made that very clear.
It was disappointing that it took so long to figure out what we wanted to do with our project because of the problems that we kept facing with trying to book the PAC for the assembly and then trying to find out ways to encourage students to attend the assembly and learn about all the things that we had planned in the beginning but in the end, I think that the donation drive and the PALs sexual assault awareness training was the greatest way that we could have gone with this project because it will have a lasting effect with the students at Austin High School after we leave, and the donations will help benefit Safe Place's cause to help the prevention of sexual assault and the healing for the people that have been effected.
Overall, I was happy with the way that we executed this project and were able to partner with the PALs program at Austin High and Safe Place. I think our project will help impact Safe Place in a positive way and I think that the donations that we are going to have available for them will help them with their cause. Although the assembly that we originally had planned out for the project didn't work out, I'm glad that this was something effective that we could do for Safe Place, and I'm happy with the way things turned out for the better.
When my capstone group first approached this project, we didn't know what we were going to do. We had a lot of ideas to choose from but we still weren't quite sure what we wanted to do, but it wasn't until we narrowed it down and figured out how we would execute the project when we decided that we wanted to work with Safe Place and work with the issue of sexual assault. Since we started this project, I always felt like this was a prevalent issue in the city and in the world, so, going so bold as to make a project out of awareness of it was something that we wanted to make people think about and have a lasting effect from. At first we wanted to hold a week of awareness where specific days during the week would have different sub topics of sexual assault, but we realized that was less realistic and for the project and moved to a different idea and that was to hold an assembly for the student body and create awareness by working with Safe Place on being trained how to talk to students about this touchy issue, but over the course of the project, we realized that the most impact we could do to best benefit the people involved in the school and in Safe Place, we decided to host a donation drive to help provide supplies for the people in need that they sponsor and help.
This project has opened my eyes to this issue of sexual assault in the community and the world. This issue seems to be pushed under the rug and not ever talked about because it is such a bold project to start in a high school class. There were things about this issue that I hadn't known before and it was interesting to learn all of the different things about sexual assault. For this project, it was really important to me to make such an emphasis on the fact that sexual assault is not just one-sided and doesn't only include women as the victims. I made it very clear that it can happen to anyone. Although it doesn't occur as much in men as it does women, it still happens to men and that was important to express in the making of this project and the awareness that we brought to the students. Another thing that was crucial to this project was the amount of expression that we had towards wanting to keep everything about this project equal and fair so that no one got offended because of something that they might have thought we were trying to insinuate with the making of this project. Because it is such a touchy subject, it was important that we made that very clear.
It was disappointing that it took so long to figure out what we wanted to do with our project because of the problems that we kept facing with trying to book the PAC for the assembly and then trying to find out ways to encourage students to attend the assembly and learn about all the things that we had planned in the beginning but in the end, I think that the donation drive and the PALs sexual assault awareness training was the greatest way that we could have gone with this project because it will have a lasting effect with the students at Austin High School after we leave, and the donations will help benefit Safe Place's cause to help the prevention of sexual assault and the healing for the people that have been effected.
Overall, I was happy with the way that we executed this project and were able to partner with the PALs program at Austin High and Safe Place. I think our project will help impact Safe Place in a positive way and I think that the donations that we are going to have available for them will help them with their cause. Although the assembly that we originally had planned out for the project didn't work out, I'm glad that this was something effective that we could do for Safe Place, and I'm happy with the way things turned out for the better.
Margaret:
This project was a really hard project to approach. We had a lot of hoops to jump through and that made it hard to move forward. We ended up having to wait a month or more for each step to be completed. I am disappointed that we had to take out the assembly part of our project, but I am happy that we found an alternative that ended up having a much bigger impact than an assembly would've had. I really enjoyed working with Safe Place and they provided us valuable training that will stay with us for a long time. They taught PALS some interactive and fun ways to teach others about assault and unhealthy relationships. We can use these techniques to teach our PALEES about it. We wanted to thank Safe Place for all the work they did with us and for all the work they have done in the community so we held a donation drive. It was our way to give back to them and I was really happy with the turnout. It was a great way to end out this project and it made me feel like I was really giving back.
While doing this project we ran into certain issues with how we would approach our topic and who our audience would be. We wanted to stress that assault affected both girls and boys and we weren't sure how to approach that. We decided that by training the PALS we would be offering a non-biased education that could be passed on to a younger generation. I am really happy with that. All of the PALS students had a lot of fun with the training and I was really happy with all of positive feedback I got from them. We were able to get an education that focused learning and safety without accusing a certain gender. This project also opened my eyes to the real stigma behind sexual assault. We found out that there were certain things we couldn't talk about and certain things that would've been considered inappropriate. We realized that the biggest problem with raising awareness for sexual assault was the stigma behind it. So we worked hard to make sure we raised awareness in a non-biased and non-aggressive way.
Overall I am really happy with the way our project turned out. If I could go back I would probably dig deeper when trying to find people to contact because contacting people really took up a lot of our time and took away some of the time we could have used to execute our project. I also would've contacted multiple people at the same time. We at most contacted three people at a time and that really kept us from executing our project when we wanted to. We ran into a lot of problems when it came to contacting the right people. I think we spent too much time trying to hop around school rules and too little time trying to find another way to spread our message. I wish we would have had a plan B for when plan A didn't work because when plan A fell through we found ourselves scrambling to find something else to do. I would have started contacting parents for the donation drive earlier because we have had to extend our drive so we can collect more items. I also wish we had worked out the PALS training earlier so that it would have more of an impact for the students this year. But luckily what we got done made a lasting impression, we are hoping that safe place will continue training the PALS after we leave and that our project will continue to impact students around Austin High. Overall I was happy with the way our project turned out and really happy with the impact it has made and will make in the future.
While doing this project we ran into certain issues with how we would approach our topic and who our audience would be. We wanted to stress that assault affected both girls and boys and we weren't sure how to approach that. We decided that by training the PALS we would be offering a non-biased education that could be passed on to a younger generation. I am really happy with that. All of the PALS students had a lot of fun with the training and I was really happy with all of positive feedback I got from them. We were able to get an education that focused learning and safety without accusing a certain gender. This project also opened my eyes to the real stigma behind sexual assault. We found out that there were certain things we couldn't talk about and certain things that would've been considered inappropriate. We realized that the biggest problem with raising awareness for sexual assault was the stigma behind it. So we worked hard to make sure we raised awareness in a non-biased and non-aggressive way.
Overall I am really happy with the way our project turned out. If I could go back I would probably dig deeper when trying to find people to contact because contacting people really took up a lot of our time and took away some of the time we could have used to execute our project. I also would've contacted multiple people at the same time. We at most contacted three people at a time and that really kept us from executing our project when we wanted to. We ran into a lot of problems when it came to contacting the right people. I think we spent too much time trying to hop around school rules and too little time trying to find another way to spread our message. I wish we would have had a plan B for when plan A didn't work because when plan A fell through we found ourselves scrambling to find something else to do. I would have started contacting parents for the donation drive earlier because we have had to extend our drive so we can collect more items. I also wish we had worked out the PALS training earlier so that it would have more of an impact for the students this year. But luckily what we got done made a lasting impression, we are hoping that safe place will continue training the PALS after we leave and that our project will continue to impact students around Austin High. Overall I was happy with the way our project turned out and really happy with the impact it has made and will make in the future.
Rachel:
When we decided on sexual assault as the issue we would take on we were not sure how to help it, sexual assault is such a big problem that to really do any good in a relatively short period of time the impact you are trying to make almost needs to be through assisting an established organization or only trying to reach a small demographic. At first we took a preventative/informative approach, in large part because a majority of the senior class, which we are a part of, will be going to college next year where there are a large number of instances of sexual assault. Our original plan was to hold an entire week of assemblies on assault and the different facets of it, this plan was minimized to one assembly for sexual assault awareness for seniors and other students the school would allow to attend. However as we communicated with safe place more and more it became apparent that they needed help getting supplies for victims of assault, at the same time as the logistics of getting an assembly together on sexual assault were becoming more challenging, this motivated us to change our approach from preventative to helping in the recovery and rehabilitation of victims, because we realized we could do more immediate good with a donation drive for safe place.
Sexual assault is too often only associated with female victims, when in reality anyone can be sexually assaulted, and everyone who is a victim should feel safe to talk to someone about it, and press charges if they so choose. During this project I learned many facts and statistics about sexual assault and by far the most shocking was how high the percentage of rapists that never spend a day in jail is. Safe Place is able to provide a place to stay and environment where the residents don't feel singled out as victims.
I really liked our project, event though it did not turn out how we had planned. It gave us the chance to learn more about a topic that is too often covered up and evaded in discussion because of just how horrible it is. I also liked that we were able to help safe place by collecting donations so they can continue to help people in need and this contribution went to a more impactful cause then our previous plans would have.
Sexual assault is too often only associated with female victims, when in reality anyone can be sexually assaulted, and everyone who is a victim should feel safe to talk to someone about it, and press charges if they so choose. During this project I learned many facts and statistics about sexual assault and by far the most shocking was how high the percentage of rapists that never spend a day in jail is. Safe Place is able to provide a place to stay and environment where the residents don't feel singled out as victims.
I really liked our project, event though it did not turn out how we had planned. It gave us the chance to learn more about a topic that is too often covered up and evaded in discussion because of just how horrible it is. I also liked that we were able to help safe place by collecting donations so they can continue to help people in need and this contribution went to a more impactful cause then our previous plans would have.