Healthy Roots at On Track Academy: Autumn Series Recap
Healthy Roots at On Track Academy: Autumn Series Recap
Monday, December 16, marked the final session of YWCA Spokane’s Healthy Roots series at On Track Academy (OTA) for the autumn term. This impactful program provided valuable lessons on relationship dynamics, self-care, and empowerment to high school students in a supportive and interactive environment.
What is Healthy Roots?
Healthy Roots is a free educational series designed to help high school students explore and understand healthy and unhealthy relationship dynamics. The program equips youth with tools to foster self-awareness, recognize abuse, and build healthier interpersonal relationships.
This autumn, YWCA Spokane partnered with Millayna Klingback and Matthew Goebel to deliver the program to the Summit and Beacon Groups at OTA.
About On Track Academy
On Track Academy (OTA) is an alternative high school within Spokane Public Schools, serving juniors and seniors. OTA empowers students to take ownership of their learning, offering individualized support to help them achieve their goals during and after high school. The academy’s emphasis on choice and personal responsibility aligns seamlessly with the values promoted in Healthy Roots.
Program Highlights
- Self-Care: Students explored strategies for emotional regulation and building healthy relationships with themselves.
- Healthy Relationships: Lessons focused on identifying positive relationship traits and practicing conflict resolution skills.
- Recognizing Abuse: Youth learned to identify signs of abuse and understand the cycle of abuse.
- Supporting Others: The program emphasized ways to help friends in abusive situations, with Beacon students benefiting from a special safety planning session led by Maribel Ortega of Mujeres in Action.
"A key success to creating safe spaces that allow deeper engagement with the material is listening to the youth and adjusting to what works best for each group," says Chloe Bolz, YWCA Spokane Prevention Specialist. "Some teens are very boisterous and interactive, others need quiet space to process. It is important to pay attention and walk along side youth who are really guiding the discussion in ways that are meaningful to them."
We are inspired by the optional nature of participation at OTA. This alternative school emphasizes youth empowerment by allowing young people to choose how they spend their time at school. This approach underscores the importance of concepts that we facilitate such as consent and healthy boundaries. Students felt empowered and respected throughout the program.
"After the Healthy Roots/Healthy Relationships seminars I see young people moving from unhealthy to healthy relationships," Said Millayna Klingback, Summit teacher at OTA. "Students are using consistent vocabulary to discuss unhealthy relationships vs. abusive relationships and make choices about their relationships."
What Students Had to Say
Feedback from students highlights the profound impact of the Healthy Roots program:
- "I’ve learned about the cycle of abuse and the warning signs. I’ve also got some resources and I am really relieved to know I can get help if I need it."
- "These sessions have taught me a better understanding of how you treat people and how it affects them. I can apply what we learned in any day to day relationships and my future relationships."
- "This is helpful to me because I just got out of a relationship and I can look for these signs in my next relationship."
Gratitude and Partnership
YWCA Spokane extends heartfelt thanks to the dedicated staff at On Track Academy for their partnership in bringing Healthy Roots to local youth. Together, we’ve taken an important step in empowering the next generation with tools to build healthy, respectful relationships.
By: Chloe Bolz
Related Posts
Healthy Roots at Shadle Park High School: Recap
In December, YWCA partnered with the college and career center at Shadle Park High School to bring three interactive lunch time lessons focused on the social and emotional skills required for post-secondary success. What is Healthy Roots? Healthy Roots is a free educational series facilitated with high school students to…
2024 Youth Self-Care Summit
The third annual Youth Self-Care Summit was held on Saturday, December 14th. The Youth Self-Care Summit is a special one day celebration brought to the community through a partnership between YWCA Spokane and Strong Women Achieving Greatness (SWAG). The Summit brings youth together to participate in interactive workshops that teach…