“We thank you for the 10 year partnership and the amazing work your facilitators do with the youth in our community.”

“Thank you so much!!!!! You are a terrific bunch to work with and you make such a difference in the lives of our students.”

“Awesome. We need to get this information across the country into every school!”

“I am writing to confirm our plan to collaborate on an evaluation of the Safeteen program over the coming months. I am delighted about such a collaboration, blending research and community action to verify the efficacy of Safeteen and/or it’s related programs. I look forward to the partnership.”

“I am writing in support of a project proposal from the University of BC and the Safeteen program, which involves a partnership between UBC, Safeteen, the Justice Institute of BC and the Vancouver School District.

The Safeteen program has been a component of many of our secondary schools’ action plans for increasing teen safety since 1983. The program is highly regarded by school staff, and the youth who participate enjoy and value the experience and tell us how much they value these opportunities to address issues relevant to their lives.”

“Nothing is held back in this course. Nothing is unacceptable to discuss or ask about. A very freeing and powerful program.”

“A long-standing leadership priority of the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation is to promote safe schools and violence prevention initiatives for youth. To further this aim, the Federation joined in partnership with the highly acclaimed Safeteen program in January 2001. As stated in a recent proposal, a large urban school district stated “This program is one of the most well received and ‘life-changing’ for students who are fortunate enough to attend.””

“Anita, through who she is and through her teaching, creates a space for girls whereby they can absolutely be themselves without any shame. They can be their most fearful self, their most aggressive self, their most confused self, their most showy self, and all those aspects are recognized, understood, and supported.

She then takes them through a process of finding yet another side of themselves, often deeply and protectively buried, which is their strongest self, their most honest self, and their most powerful self. It is a process that left me changed forever.”

“I saw the toughest boys silent, heads forward listening most intently absorbing vital info that they hungered for and in the end they all showed respect and much gratitude! The training has and will make positive change here on Haida Gwaii! Haaw’a!”

“Since 1998, The Justice Institute of British Columbia has been offering Safeteen courses as an integral part of our Working with Children and Youth programming. These both popular and innovative courses, created and instructed by Safeteen founder Anita Roberts, offer current, relevant and practical insight and skills for working with today’s youth. Safeteen has a long and well-respected history of working with youth, youth workers and school boards to address the serious social issues facing youth today.”

“The larger school community benefits from the Safeteen program in a number of ways. In addition to the obvious impact on individual student choices and behaviours the school community gains language and an ongoing reference that keeps the lessons of the program alive. Once teachers have participated in the training, they have the awareness and a common language for coaching and reinforcing the student based workshops. I know of no other program that delivers the goods on these levels.

In summation, Anita Robert’s Safeteen program is a thoughtful, insightful, powerful instrument. It is wielded by skillful and passionate people for the benefit of any kid, school or community fortunate to enough to experience it.”

“Anita sends very clear messages and challenged me to go a bit further in my own growth. This has to be shared more.”

“Excellent instruction, very effective in helping me to recognize my own inner strengths and in turn energized me to teach the youth I work with. The instructor was dynamic, informative and intuitive.”

“Aama sa as nisim! Noxs Moxshl way. Ksim Lax Sgiik niiy, Wilps Gwiix Maaw wil witgwiy. Ksim Nisga’a niiy Gitakdamix wil witgwiy…Good Day to you all! My name is Noxs Moxs. I am Eagle form the house of Gwiix Maaw. I am Nisga’a. I am from New Aiyansh.”

When I became involved in the Safeteen Program, I was a teacher in the Grade 7 classroom. In the first year I saw these girls walk into the room at the beginning of the day as I saw them every day, slouching over walking as a group. At the end of the workshop these same girls were walking confidently and proud of who they were as women. I can say that these got stronger and stronger each year with every group of girls. The boys, as I was not involved as much in their workshops, were another story. These boys walked out with more than just confidence, they walked out with the skills to communicate with peers and adults. It gives me great pride to see the work that the Safeteen trainers did with our young Nisga’a youth.”

“Hello Anita thank you so much for your workshop. My 15 year old daughter was able to stand in her wise woman and then use her inner bitch. A 16 years old friend tried to kiss her she said “no” he still tried. She said “I said no” He still tried she decked him and in a loud voice said”leave me alone, don’t talk to me ever again”. I was just so proud of her and grateful for the support and knowledge shared. - Deb (parent)

Lindsay was amazing. As soon as he introduced himself I thought I could trust him. Keep doing what you guys are doing. It’s really cool.

I learned so much today. I feel confident and I am more comfortable knowing that I know how to protect myself. And I want to say a big thank you to Megan our instructor for teaching us how to be safe.

Safeteen is AWESOME!

Safeteen was so funny and it taught me so much about violence prevention.

It was awesome, very helpful and the skills we learned will help us in life and we can help stop violence and abuse even better.”

“Today my delta secondary school was visited by you. The one my group met was Jill. And I needed to say thank you, to all of you. Especially Jill. You make such a difference, you have no idea. I have a friend who never believed she could be anything, she thought everyone was perfect except her. And today she finally realized, no one is, we all have our faults. Today, even the popular girls were real, actual people, who opened up to us. Let me be frank, I’m no popular kid, I daydream away my anxiety and anger, and I hang behind in the background watching. My friends usually consist of people who don’t think they have, or need any. But today, I wasn’t the geeky nerd who people go to when they aren’t comfortable with counsellors, I was a person. We were all just people. So thank you. Thank you so much. You are the people I want to be like. You are the people who the world needs more of.”

“Safeteen, you saved my life.”

“When u guys came to my school i thought it would be another boring presentation, but i thought wrong. It actually got me thinking about all the people who have suffered from verbal and physical violence, sexual harassment, and bullying and how i felt sorry for those people. The Safeteen workshop taught me how to stand up for myself if a horrible thing ever happened to me. This was the most outstanding thing I learned at school. THANK–YOU! Because of u guys i feel a lot more safer and confident in myself…!!!”

“I took your course way back in middle school (2005?) at Landsdowne Middle School in Victoria, BC, and I just wanted to let you guys know that it has stuck with me to this day. Today I was bussing home alone decently late at night, and although I was on a busy bus, a man approached me and started making lewd comments. I can only describe it as verbal sexual assault. I felt incredibly uncomfortable, and my initial reaction was to ignore him or laugh it off. But then I remembered my inner “wise woman” and I looked him in the eye and said to him calmly but firmly “I don’t like the way you’re talking to me”. He was obviously shaken but kept making similarly inappropriate comments. So I just repeated my statement. Eventually he left the bus, and I continued on my way. But I felt so empowered and in control, all because I had the knowledge from you guys of how to properly dissipate the situation. So thank you very much, and please continue doing the amazing work you do. It really does work.”

“My name is Bryan and I go to Frank Hurt SS. Just today, Dec, 05, in the morning at my school I had one of the Safeteen class things. I have to say it is one of the coolest things I have ever been to. You guys make it realistic, not like all the other dumb teachers that just say “turn around and ignore them, or walk away” (which obviously never works). I really liked doing this program. It taught me about keeping your cool, cause that’s what it’s all about anyway. The teacher made it funny and realistic, something no other teacher has ever managed to do with me before. Anyway, I just wanted to say it’s a great program and I hope you will be coming back soon.”

“I feel that Safeteen may have changed my life.”

“I am a grade 12 , 16 year-old female from Caledonia Senior Secondary in Terrace BC. Today I took part in the Safeteen work shop with one of your instructors named Anna.

I just wanted to say how good I felt after the workshop was over. (NOT because it was over but because I learned a lot haha) I felt more confident about myself and about being a female. There have been countless times where I have felt like ” the little girl” because of the way guys treat me or even with other females and the “gossip” etc. Never once did I ever know what to do in ANY of the situations I’ve been in. And even when talking to my parents and lately my friends too I’ve used my “inner Bitch” and it just gets me into a LOT of trouble. There are so many creepy guys in this small “city” I live in. And the problem in such a small “city” is that you can’t show anyone how fragile you really are and if you do…you have to have a strong backbone to back you up and I just wanted to say thank you for helping to bring that out in me. I feel that you have made a difference in not only mine but the other 30 some odd girls who took part in the full workshop today here at Caledonia.”