EASTHAMPTON – The Say Something Youth Initiative, which began in 2019, will continue throughout the 2021-2022 school year at Easthampton High School (EHS).

The program, which is facilitated by Safe Passage, is a youth-focused violence prevention curriculum “designed to meet the unique needs and strengths of the Easthampton High School Community, especially LBGTQ+ students.”

During the Aug. 24 Easthampton School Committee meeting, Amanda Lapierre, a youth prevention specialist at Safe Passage, facilitated information on what the program aims to accomplish for the upcoming fall semester at Easthampton High School.

“Our project aims to promote healthy relationships by giving the EHS community the skills and confidence to say something when they see harmful language or behavior happening in the building or the community,” said Lapierre. Through a partnership between Safe Passage, Community Action’s Workforce Development and Youth Programs, and the EHS Diversity and Inclusion Center, students at EHS will learn skills to notice, prevent and safely intervene when they see behaviors that contribute to violence.

According to Lapierre, the youth initiative offers both in-school and extracurricular components. The in-school programming provides all incoming ninth graders at EHS an opportunity to participate in an eight-session violence prevention curriculum dedicated to developing the aforementioned skills. The in-school curriculum will be delivered to students through their ninth and 10th grade health classes.

“The extracurricular components of our programming include an Advisory Group and Summer Leadership Academy,” said Lapierre. “Advisory Group is a space where Student Advisors, school staff and faculty, and caregivers meet regularly throughout the school year with Say Something Youth Initiative staff to provide guidance and feedback on The Say Something Youth Initiative programming.”

For this school year, the initiative will be conducting their first advisory group with the goal of acquiring feedback on how the initiative is going at EHS. The group will be composed of youth advisors, adult stakeholders and Say Something Youth Initiative Staff. There will be two separate cohorts, one in the fall and one in the spring.

Ten paid advisory positions will be offered per cohort, and there will be four after-school meetings per cohort. The youth orientation for these meetings will be on Oct. 6. They will be conducted on the third Wednesday of each month. Youth advisors will receive a $100 stipend each semester they participate in the group.

“At Say Something Youth Initiative we believe in the importance of having youth involved in each aspect of our program and we understand the importance of compensating youth for their time, effort and input,” said Lapierre. “The extracurricular components of our programming, Advisory Group and Summer Leadership Academy, provide monetary stipends to each youth participant for their participation.”

Earlier this spring, Safe Passage created a one-time Adaptation Team that was responsible for adapting the Say Something in-school curriculum for youth. The Adaptation Team was made up of students from Easthampton High School, staff from each agency across the partnership, a curriculum expert and a project evaluator. The students who participated in the adaptation process also received stipends for their work and contributions for that program, as well.

After completing the adaptation process, Safe Passage conducted the first Summer Leadership Academy where participants worked together on a poster project, “A Poster Campaign for Social Change” exploring the topics of consent, resilience, and the power of being true to yourself. Summer Leadership Academy ended with a youth-led event where the participants shared their projects and hosted an open-mic during which they shared their passions and talents with staff across the partnership and their caregivers.

“We need voices, we need leaders,” said School Committee Chair Cynthia Kwiecinski. “We can never have too many leaders.”

The Say Something initiative is supported by the Massachusetts Department of Health.