Healthy Teen Relationships & Violence Prevention: How BLOOM365 Is Uprooting Abuse

What if we could end teen dating violence in a generation?
It’s bold—but that’s exactly what Donna Bartos and BLOOM365 are setting out to do.

In this powerful episode, Mandi sits down with Donna Bartos, founder of BLOOM365, a groundbreaking nonprofit working to prevent teen dating violence and promote healthy teen relationships through youth-led education and advocacy.

You’ll learn how BLOOM365 is helping to uproot abuse in a generation by equipping schools, military communities, and peer advocates with real, trauma-informed tools that empower youth—and the adults who support them.

We explore:
 🟣 The L.E.V.E.L. response — Donna’s 5-step framework to help adults Listen, Empathize, Validate, Empower, and Link when a teen discloses abuse.

In the second half of the episode, Donna shares how BLOOM365 is now supporting teens who recognize they may be causing harm, with new programs designed to interrupt cycles of abuse before they continue. It’s a compassionate, accountability-based approach to healing and prevention for everyone involved.

Whether you're an educator, advocate, parent, or a teen who wants to get involved, this conversation will equip you to take action.

RESOURCES

🎧 Donna’s Podcast: Uproot Abuse
Listen to her episode on the L.E.V.E.L. response to learn more on restoring power and control to survivors

🌐 BLOOM365 Websites:

• bloom365.org – Learn more about the mission, programs, and impact
• bloom365usa.org – Get involved or bring BLOOM to your school or community

Mandi’s Website

🔹 Intuition Quiz – Find out how well you trust and act on your intuition: AwareAndPrepared.life (Scroll to the bottom and click "Take the Quiz")

🔹 Connect with Mandi
 📌 LinkedIn: Mandi Pratt
📌 Instagram: @WomenAwareAndPrepared

Transcript

 Am I judging this teen in my life or this young person for what they have or haven't done? Why didn't you call the police? Why didn't you tell me sooner? You know, I told you that if you dated this person that they were going to harm you. Not judging them and staying out of that judgment zone as mu much as possible.

We don't want to give advice. Especially if victimization is going on, chances are you don't know the whole story. You know, if your advice that you're gonna give them is the wrong advice, and then they're harmed even more. Hey, brave one. Welcome to the Aware and Prepared Podcast. I'm your host, Mandy Pratt, trauma-informed resilience speaker, domestic violence victim advocate, and narcissistic abuse survivor.

Here we keep it real with true crime stories and real world strategies to prevent emotional and physical harm. My guests and I share a mix of insight and survivor grit, all to help you feel safer, trust yourself more deeply, and live with greater peace and power. Let's trade fear for freedom and step into the peace.

That you deserve.

Welcome back to the Aware and Prepared Podcast. We have a special guest on today, Donna Bartos. Donna is an author, advocate educator, nonprofit executive and thought leader for the prevention of domestic violence, sexual assault, teen dating violence among the Gen Z youth in 2006, after serving in executive capacities for nonprofit public health and youth development organizations, she founded Bloom 365.

To uproot abuse in a generation inspired by personal lived experience and two decades of self-guided research. Donna authored quote, are you blooming or wilting prevention education curricula and created the level L-E-V-E-L response strategy tools anyone can use to reduce the risk of interpersonal violence from spreading from one generation to the next.

Her work in program development, community engagement and root cause prevention training spans the individual relationship community and societal levels. Bloom 365 programs are now implemented in schools, community organizations, and military installations across the us. Donna has been recognized locally and nationally for her vision and ability to turn theory and research into practice.

She holds a BA in communication from McDaniel College and a Master's in Public Administration from Grand Canyon University. Welcome back to the Aware and Prepared Podcast. I'm excited to introduce you to Donna here who is with us. Thank you. Hi Mandy. Thanks for having me. Sure. So Donna is a superstar in our world of domestic violence victim advocacy, and she has, uh, bloom 365, which.

I am always sharing as a resource when I go out and speak. So what greater way than to have her actually on here and talk about her work. We finally connected recently at the Institute for Violence Abuse and Trauma Summit. So I was super excited. We already had a really great conversation in which I was like, shoot, I wish I would've recorded that.

But we'll just consider that our warmup. So now we know exactly what we're talking about. And Donna, if you wanna just kind of give a brief overview of Bloom's 365 and then we can talk about your genius level response. What is that? So go ahead. Yeah. Well thank you for that kind introduction. You know, I always say that a, when I was a kid and a young adult, I never thought that this would be the kind of microphone that I would be holding, and certainly not the type of cape that all of us who do this work, you know, that superhero kind of cape that I'd be wearing this.

I wanted to be a singer on Broadway, but here I am. That's amazing. Um, you know, lived experiences with all the forms of interpersonal violence, I always share. You know, I may not have had a gun put to my head. Someone may not have tried to strangle me. Um, I may not have been the victim of an attempted murder, but I experienced everything else from child sexual assault to teen dating abuse.

Abuse, witnessing domestic violence as a child, stalking success, sexual harassment in the workplace, and all those other forms of interpersonal violence, but never thought or saw myself as a victim. Yeah. Or even as a survivor, because as a, as a teen and young adult, those weren't words that I ever heard.

Mm-hmm. And I certainly didn't. Hear the terminology for all the different forms of interpersonal violence. Mm-hmm. Uh, but at the age of 33, I started to hear those terms and realized, whoa, that's everything that I've experienced. And it does have a name. Right. So. In August, 2006, I launched a movement then called Purple Ribbon Council to cut out domestic abuse, um, which has now become in 2009.

2010 started to really inch our way to changing the name to the organization to Bloom 365. It's an acronym for Bring Love on Others More 365 days a year. The focus of this nonprofit organization, which is based in Maricopa County, Arizona, is really threefold, is to prevent abuse, uh, before it starts.

That's the hope to promote safe and healthy relationships for all and to protect young people. Gen Z, primarily youth right now who are between the ages of, uh, 11 and 24 25. From the harms associated with interpersonal violence. So our organization provides healthy relationship and abuse prevention education in schools and youth serving organizations across the county.

And then comprehensive wraparound services for those young people who receive our education and information. Who then, as a result of that, identify as experiencing victimization? So we provide comprehensive trauma, counseling, case management, peer support services, victim advocacy specifically to young people, ages 11 to 24 online in person, and now mobilely through curbside services, through a mobile outreach van that we have.

All of that work is essential. And that's the type of work that we hear about oftentimes in adult centered leans. Mm-hmm. Um, but the program that I'm most inspired by and have a lot of hope for is a program that launched a couple years ago that focuses on young people who are perpetrating these harms.

Young people who are at risk for harming others, focusing on early interventions, school-based interventions, one-on-one and or group as well as intensive counseling if necessary. Focused on reducing what puts young people at risk for harming others and improving and elevating what they need in their lives or in our lane of work, the protective factors that they need to essentially put a bubble around them from harming others.

So that's the work that Bloom 365 does locally in Maricopa County. And then the work that I do, you know, SME or subject matter expert, which are. Three terms I never thought I'd be using to describe myself in this work as just a survivor. Mm-hmm. Um, as I now go out and train others on how to implement these programs and services in their community.

Mm-hmm. Train adults on what to say, what not to say, how to respond and train young leaders in militaries, colleges and schools on how to be better peer-to-peer advocates and influencers. Awesome. That's amazing. So it's a lot. It is a lot. So thank you for being here with us. My goodness. And so I remember you were giving a talk there.

I, I was speaking at the same time as you, so I couldn't hear it, but you just actually did a podcast episode on it. So can you share with us a little bit about that? Sure back in 2018, 2019, uh, as I was going out and really piloting and crafting a training for adults or the trusted, trusted adults in the lives of youth, so teachers, mentors, coaches, parents, caregivers, youth service providers, I created this.

Three Rs, recognize, respond, reframe, trusted adult ally training, and it was a comprehensive and still is a comprehensive three day get in the weeds training on recognizing what puts young people at risk for harming others. Of course. What are the red flags? Of abuse and violence, but most importantly, what's putting them at risk for doing these harms?

Verbal, emotional, physical, sexual violence, and how do we prevent that? Mm-hmm. And then the response part, what I created around that was. What to say and what not to say If a young person discloses, victimization to you so that you don't have a deer in headlight moment where you, you, you're caught and you don't know what to say, and at that moment they realize, well, back up.

Maybe I shouldn't have said anything to you. Right? And it's called Level. And Level is an acronym for listen, empathize, validate, encourage, and link to resources. And then the final part of that full training. Was called or is called Reframe. It's a track that's specifically helping the adults in the lives of youth to start thinking more about proactive prevention measures, root cause prevention versus the traditional after harm response after harm care.

So really going from reactive to proactive. Love it. And over the last several years, you know, what I found is number one, people don't often have three days. To spend good in a training and, and, and you know, everybody wants a one hour workshop. But yes, we can't tackle everything that we need to tackle in one hour.

We just about cover it in three days because this is not a one size fits all solution. You can't just lump preventing domestic violence and sexual assault in, in one bucket. It's so, yeah, comprehensive. And especially if we're working with youth and the pervasiveness of it, that. These harmful behaviors can now be 24 7 with the access of a phone.

So, right. There's so much to uncover, but what I figured out was, okay, baseline, what does everybody need? Yes, I believe everybody needs to know how to prevent this stuff, but baseline. Because of the role that teachers and coaches, and mentors, and parents and caregivers and others play in the lives of Youth Baseline, they need to know how to respond if a young person discloses victimization to them, because that could completely shut, shut the door on help seeking Yes.

And support later on if that trusted adult. Responds inappropriately or blames the young person who's been victimized for what they did or didn't do. Mm-hmm. So I've lifted level out of the full training and now offer that as a once and done four hour, four and a half hour, highly interactive virtual or in-person training for those adults in the lives of youth so that they have baseline.

Advocacy skills that we, professional advocates get through hours of credentialing and training. Mm-hmm. But just baseline, how to be that natural helper, how to be more helpful than hurtful. How to truly support, how to listen, how to empathize, how to validate, how to encourage, and how to link them to resources.

Right. That's amazing and super helpful. I know that when we disclose to people, especially somebody that you think you can trust, like a teacher or a coach, or even a parent, it can do more, a lot more harm. Like we can move from PTSD to complex PTSD if they're disclosing and you know, they're blamed for that or just given horrible advice.

So I appreciate that. Um, that you created that easy acronym to remember on tips that we can do. So can you dive into more of what those are? Yeah, sure. And if anybody wants the full overview, please take a listen to, uh, my podcast, uproot Abuse, where you can get about 40 minutes of more kind of tips and sharing and, and add actually how to use the level tool.

So when you think of a level, an actual tool that's in a toolbox, it is level. It is a calm response, so it's strategic why those acronyms were used in that way, and my hope with this level response technique is that we recognize as adults when a young person is sharing that they're going through it, whether it's victimization or they just had a crummy day at school, whatever it is.

That we don't put our adultism hat on and go into what I call the Joan Zone, another acronym. Mm-hmm. So anybody listening who's named Joan, apologies not picking on you, but it's the way these, these words and letters shaped up into something that's memorable. So. Am I leveling right now or am I going into the Jones Zone?

And the Jones Zone is the J stands for judgment. Am I judging this teen in my life or this young person for what they have or haven't done? Why didn't you call the police? Why didn't you tell me sooner? I told you that if you dated this person that they were going to harm you, not judging them and staying out of that judgment zone as mu much as possible.

And then the O in the Jones zone is opinion. I mean, how many of us and, and Mandy, I don't know, like, do you like people automatically giving you their opinion if you didn't ask for it? Mm-hmm. Especially if you're going through a harmful situation. So. How do you put the opinion aside? We all have them.

We'd love sharing our opinions. Yeah. Right. But I mean, everything is driven by opinion these days from Yeah. Who you vote for and what you're going to eat, and what you're gonna wear. I mean, it's all opinion generated. But how do you take that normative response of just giving your opinion without being asked for it and put it aside?

Well, remember, am I going into the Jones zone or am I leveling right now? And then the A is advice, and this is so important, why we don't want to give advice, especially if victimization is going on, chances are you don't know the whole. Story, chances are you don't know the safety impli implications. You know, if your advice that you're gonna give them is the wrong advice, and then that advice leads them to making a choice based upon what you told them to do.

And then they're harmed even more, or even killed because your advice was not appropriate. And no one wants that on their shoulders. No, no one wants to carry that weight of advice giving. Mm-hmm. So that A in the Joan response is stay away from giving advice. And then the end is nudging them to do what you want them to do because you are the adult and you know what, what's best.

Mm-hmm. They are clear of that. As kids, when we, you were a teen. When I was a teen, I did not wanna be told what to do. Sure. I did not want my parents to tell me, well, when I was your age. Right. You know, this is what happened to me. So staying out of the Jones zone and going back to level and just asking yourself, if you do go into the Jones zone, give yourself a little bit of grace because that's how we're programmed to judge.

Sure. To give, to give advice. Yep. To tell people what to do because that's what we would do. Mm-hmm. So just most of your way back to the level, zone, and, and level with them. And I think that if more of us did that. We would definitely see a reduction in victim blaming. Mm-hmm. We would definitely see an increase in help seeking and reporting.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, one of the stats that really motivated me to create the overall trusted ally training, but specifically the level technique, was that only 9% of teens seek help and support from an adult after victimization. Wow, that's it. Wow. That's crazy. And so that's barely one in 10. Yeah. And when you think about it, why is that?

Well, because how do we adults show up? Mm-hmm. Right? When, when we're, when we're trying to be helpful and as adults we're fixers, especially if you're a parent, you wanna fix it. Yes. I was just gonna say that. Right, right. So how do you step out a fix it mode and fixer mode? I use the analogy and give them the wheel of the bus with a level response.

They're driving the bus. You're just the passenger and you are empowering them. And why this is so essential is because this level response, if we do it and do it consistently and more of us do it, what that does is we start to take power away from the person who's done the harm from the abuser. Mm-hmm.

Because when the person who's doing the harm or harm, doer or harm doing. Blames the person that they've harmed for that abuse. Right? Right. And then the world around them, their natural helpers, their friends, family, peers, coworkers, et cetera, do the same thing. Mm-hmm. Well, that gaslighting roots in and they start to believe that it is their fault, and that puts even bigger barriers up to their healing and safety.

Right. And I remember, can you share with us the example that you shared in your podcast episode about the level response about how you were at a funeral for a teenager who had been murdered by her boyfriend, and what did that lady come up to you and say? So it was, we, we were actually doing an exhibit after the teen dating violence murder.

Okay. Of, um, this woman's, um, daughter. Mm-hmm. And we, our nonprofit took the National Silent Witness campaign and exhibit, and we created one in the likeness of 18 to 24 year olds who were killed by a current or former dating partner, or potentially were a friend visiting, um, the ex dating partner. And they were there.

Visiting and then the ex came in and killed that individual. So the silent witnesses are these life-size wood silhouettes created in the likeness of the young victims. And then there are shields on their chest that. Share what the family members wanted everybody to remember about them. Tell us a little bit about their story and what they wanted their loved one to be remembered for.

Mm-hmm. And we unveiled this exhibit in February, 2020, just before everything shut down. Mm-hmm. And as we were getting ready to walk up to this. Families, young person to honor their victim. Um, the mom looked at me and said, I still can't believe she got herself killed. And that was just really a moment that took my breath away.

And you would think, wow. Even like a parent who's lost their teen child to an act of dating violence, homicide is still carrying that burden and that weight and blaming their daughter. For her death. And so it was an opportunity to share with this mom, like your daughter is not to blame for this. The her ex-partner made an intentional choice to take her life that day.

He and only he is to blame for this. And if you wanna go a little bit deeper Yeah, we can start blaming society and everyone, but he made that choice. Right? Right. He did not make that choice. And, and it was not her fault. And her mom looked at me and said, I've never thought of it that way. And to me as an advocate, I'm like, what?

Yeah. In the back of my mind, like, really? But then when you really think about it. What are the messages aside from us doing this work in the trenches of folks who aren't doing this work, who don't have access to this information, who didn't have their aha moment at some point? Right. You know, burst in the ignorance bubble and they say ignorance is bliss and kind of bursting that and now you're more aware.

Mm-hmm. They're not, they're not getting this information. Mm-hmm. And so of course it was never. The words victim blaming were never really heard by this parent, by this mom. Sure. Right. And so I think when we go back to level and we start really doing that as family members, community members, the majority of people who are gonna hear about this before professional ever gets to be there to provide support.

Yeah, that we do our best to remove this victim blaming language from yes, our responses so that we can start to take power away from those who are doing the harm and empower those who've experienced it. Right. And you said that word language. So the language that we use is so important. I know that. We talk about, you know, violence against women, but it's usually violence done by men, you know?

Um, and it's always like just the way that we say things, we have to, to really get to the root of it, which. Is what you're the expert on is really zeroing in on that language, as you pointed out, to help people understand. Um, I know that with having like a cancel culture and all of that, like we get afraid of like, gut, what do I say without, you know, but just knowing the, what you're sharing here and.

That it's not the victim's fault. Remember who perpetrated the violence. And just remembering that and keeping that, you know, in your mind as you speak about different things like that. And again, using the level, let's, and I quiz myself and see if I remember L-E-V-E-L. So L is listen, E is empathize. Yep. V as validate E is encouraged.

Yes. And L is link. So when you're talking about listening, you're talking about shutting up, right. And listening. So I know, um, that you were saying, you know, that especially as parents, our first response is to react, you know, what, what did they do to you, you know? Yeah, but instead it's listening. So what would be a better, something that we could say.

I think the most important is to determine, are we actively listening? Are we present in that moment or do we have our to-do list going on in our head? Are we thinking about what's next? Are we in the middle of, of doing a work project and our kid comes up and wants to talk to us and mm-hmm We're just like a haha kind of pacifying them.

So really make sure that you're honed into what they're saying and a couple of tips and tools that I given the, the full level responses to do something that Carl Rogers, a brilliant psychologist had, had created to just show that you're listening by reflecting back what they've shared with you. Sure.

You know, my phone was stolen and, and. Everything's going, Aw crap, and I'm having a bad day. I'm sorry you're having a bad day because your phone was stolen, right? Period. You just let them know that you are actually listening to them. You actually heard what they shared with you. And then, you know, more empathetic listening is if someone says, you know, last week I was at a party and someone sexually assaulted me and I don't know what to do, what should I do?

Well, instead of going into the Jones zone and telling 'em exactly what they should do, well, you should report it and you need to call the police and this is what you need to do. And I can't believe that happened to you. Oh my gosh. It's. Well, that is a lot to go through. I'm so sorry that happened to you.

How can I support you through this? Giving them the wheel to the bus. You might already know all the resources available, but giving them the wheel to the bus means you are giving them the options if they're asking for it. And so how can I support you? They may not know the answer. But they may just say like, thank you for just listening.

Thank you for believing me. Right. Um, and then it could be appropriate, you know, have you reported this? Are you thinking about reporting it? Do you know you can report it too? Mm-hmm. Uh, you know, if, if you're in that kind of a role where you know that this is where reportable offense. Mm-hmm. Now, if they're a minor.

Then, and you're a mandatory reporter. There's a whole lot of nuance there because you don't know, you know like when it happened, but you don't know who did it, where they did it, when they did it. Specifically. What you don't wanna do is start being an investigative reporter. Well, who did it and when did they do it?

And where did it happen? And now you got 'em in a gotcha moment where you gotta go report all this information. So you wanna jump to that encourage piece and start encouraging them to report it. So there's. There's so many layers to this, and a level of response that's so important to remember for those who wanna learn this and activate, is that it's not linear.

You don't have to say, well, first I have to listen to 'em. Then I have to empathize with them. Then I have to validate. Then I have to encourage, then I have to link the resources. You know, that's a lot. Know you're always listening throughout the process. That's an active process throughout it, but you're determining at that moment.

Which part of this should I activate? Mm-hmm. Which part of this, you know, would be supportive, right. Or what part of this have, have they shared with me that they think would be helpful? Right, right. And so the whole issue here is the power and control. So they've gotten their power taken away from them, and so you wanna help them start to get empowered.

So instead of stepping right in and being like, okay, well here's what you need to do, X, y, z, blah, blah, blah, that is still keeping their power away from them. Whereas if. You come in and do what you're saying and you're asking them, how can I support you? And if they say, I don't know, you know, gimme some ideas.

You can, you can do that. But at least like you're, you're saying that you're letting them drive the bus, like you take your hands off the wheel and you are just there to support them, not to drive them around in the bus, right? Yeah. Yeah. And the nuance here is the person who harmed them took away their power either by control, coercion, or force.

And we as adults con, continue to take away their power by telling them exactly what to do because in, in essence, we're doing what the person who harmed them did. Right? You know? Yeah, don't wear that. Wear this, get over here right now. Or, you know, I'm doing this to you and you don't have a choice. When you think about it as parents, I mean, let's be real.

How many of us parented to in by instilling fear? Or by threatening our kids so that they would comply with what we wanted them to do. Mm-hmm. Clean up your room or else eat all of your peas or else there was always that condition and that coercion, and I'm not. Given your parenting tips and tools here, but if that's how we parent from zero to whatever age, 13, you know, we're essentially teaching them that these behaviors are okay.

That being threatened into compliance is okay. That instilling fear so that you comply. Is just the way it is. So then they get into their first relationship and here it is. So they've never really had a, an opportunity to really practice their own autonomy or self-advocacy or to be empowered because they're always being told or coerced what to do.

Right. Yeah, that's a good point. It's interesting too, so when somebody comes and, you know, closes. I know that a lot of times too, it's so tricky and this was my experience and it's experience of many, is that they think the perpetrator is charming. Nice. And how could they do that to you? Are you sure? Like, did you misinterpret that maybe, or, you know, so that's very common and that's what really digs in and does that complex PTSD type of going down that road.

So I love how you are giving solutions. For making sure that we don't do that. And, and I know also it's, you know, pretty easy to, when somebody discloses say, oh my gosh, you know, something like that happened to me too back in 20 blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, and then it starts to be your story and they're like, wait a minute.

Like, I thought I was asking you for help. And then we're like putting our secondary trauma on that. Exactly. Especially if they're a young person and if that young person's empathetic or an empath. They might turn around and wanna support you when really, yes. They just like, they finally had the courage to open that door, you know, walk through it, right.

For some help and support and now it's all about you. Yeah, exactly. And that happens to me all the time. Same if I share something with a family member or someone else, and then they're like, well back in. And I finally have become empowered to say. Thank you for that, but all I need you to do right now is just listen.

That's awesome. Yeah. Can you just like, I get it, but I need you to listen. Yeah. Like just using my words. Right. You know, or like, I feel like you don't care about what I just shared with me. When you then share an example, and I know you mean well, 'cause you wanna build a common bond here and, and, and feel like, like we got something in common, but.

I just need you to listen. Yeah. Yep, exactly. And I know that you know, back to what you were originally saying, which is what I love about the work you're doing. So I love how you are actually getting to the real root. So can you tell us more about the work that you're doing? Because we're trying to prevent, prevent, prevent.

But if we're only paying attention to one side of the story, then what is that really doing? Like, you know, if, if I go out and I teach only self-defense and the traditional self-defense, right? I'm putting all of the burden on women. Whereas if we're not addressing this as a community issue. We're all gonna just keep spinning our wheels and you can buy all the safety tools and all that, but like we have somebody out here who keeps perpetra and there's usually one perpetrator and many victims.

Right? So tell us what you're doing to address the young people who are starting to show, you know, those types of tendencies or behaviors. Well, there were a few motivations to me even kind of going into that lane of work, because if you're a victim advocate and you are doing victim services work, you know, in adult centered spaces, it's an absolute no-no to merge the two victim services and offender treatment.

Right. Like they are and, and it is a no-no to do like couples therapy and all that when yes, domestic violence, like you don't do that. Right? But, you know, but. Having them under the same organizational umbrella has often been this like, oh, we don't do that. But in at Bloom 365, our work is youth centered.

Yes. And the one thing that I found and why I really started this organization and why I. Pounded the pavement as much as they could to raise the money to be able to do youth centered victim services, which was unheard of. There were definitely adult centered organizations, shelters and others that had youth programs, so they'd go out and do outreach at schools and hand out information and maybe give the national hotline, but they weren't equipped to respond to teens specifically.

Yeah. Have experienced victimization because their work is adult centered different. So then they tried to create different, hone, hone these programs that were for youth, but still with an adult center lens. Mm-hmm. And so I created in 2010, this Are you blooming or wilting Educational tool. Yeah. Love it.

Which then just catapulted and kind of snowballed into a seven lesson Comprehensive Healthy Relationships abuse prevention curriculum that's delivered primarily in high school health education classes for freshmen. So the initial strategy in Theory of change behind this curriculum was. Let's hone in and create a comprehensive core standards aligned, researched back curriculum.

Mm-hmm. Bring it into every high school freshman in every district that we can get into. Yeah. And do a four year commitment. And by year four. The whole school has been bloomed, at least the majority of of the young people have received. Amazing. And simultaneously, let's train at minimum 10% of the faculty and staff.

So at least 10% of the adults on campus have similar information and know how to help and respond. And then we start to shift the pendulum more toward proactive prevention. So that was going right along. Great. And during that time. We use, um, handheld iClicker devices in our classroom lessons where we're able to capture real time feedback loops, real time responses from students that are anonymous, and then show them their bar graph responses so that number one, they realize.

Oh, I'm not alone in these feelings. Or wait a second, we're kind of all over the board with this or, yeah. This actually is a problem and one of the questions we ask, or a couple of the questions we ask are I, or someone I know has experienced this mm-hmm. Or I, or someone I know has done this. Mm-hmm. And for years we were getting 50, 51% responding anonymously that I have experienced this.

So we were able to take that data. After thousands of students went through this curriculum and leveraged that to go raise money to develop and deliver victim services for youth, comprehensive counseling, advocacy, case management, peer support, but then there were 29% of the students were saying, I'm doing this.

And so there weren't really any pots of money out there to be able to Good point, pilot or launch a school-based intervention. Mm-hmm. For youth who are using violence already. Who are 13, 14, 15 years old who are anonymously saying, yeah, that's me. Yeah. So I had to knock on so many doors until finally, dignity Health.

Now, common Spirit Health here in Arizona approved our first line $100,000 Grant. Yay. To provide and develop an intervention program specifically for youth who were at risk for, or who were perpetrating these harms. Yeah. It's called Rooted Out. And the premise behind this is, let's look at each young person individually and these young, primarily students who are on threat assessment lists in public schools.

Yeah. Who are at risk for harming others and getting ready to be expelled from school because of aggressive abusive or violent behavior. And also schools where youth are going to alternative schools. Mm-hmm. Because of these quote unquote bad behaviors. Right. In traditional mainstream schools. Yeah. And we know.

Quote unquote, bad behaviors are typically a trauma response. Yes. Yeah, yeah. A response to a lack of wellbeing in their life. A lack of stability or self-esteem or connectedness and feeling isolated and all the things, other things that are going on. So rooted out that started and it's going and moving forward, and even still, it's hard to raise the money for it.

I'm, but what we do is we look at each young person to determine. Which of these risk factors are at play in their life? Do they not have a trusted adult in their life that encourages them? Do they have adverse childhood experiences that they've, they've experienced? Have they experienced harm? Have they witnessed harm?

Do their peers condone violent behavior? Are they engaged in a gang or, um, do they maintain these rigid beliefs of gender norms that say, because of my. You know, born sex as a male, I automatically have dominant power over you if you're not a male and like, let's be real, that's an elephant in the room.

It's still going on today. It's sure it's still a thing when 98% of school shooters are male and almost 90% of domestic violence homicide perpetrators are male. We got a problem, right? And so when we look at what's putting them most at risk, do they lack empathy or the ability to show empathy? Do they lack coping skills?

Do they lack communication and conflict resolution skills And determining, okay, these are the risk factors relevant to this young person here. Now let's go look at protective factors. Mm-hmm. Which protective factors are missing in their life? Uh, is self-esteem missing again? It's kind of a cancel out counteracting that, are they missing a trusted adult?

Are they, do they not have, um, empathy, all the things. And then we put together, quote unquote a treatment plan mm-hmm. Specific for that young person. And over the course of 16 to 26 weeks work with them, individual and in accountability groups with their peers on reducing those risk factors and improving those protective factors.

Wow. It's really, it's, it's starting to show major impact, I bet. Um, and that all came from young people going through a seven lesson curriculum, whereby lesson three or four, they started to feel comfortable enough to disclose that either they're experiencing it or doing it, and started to understand and be able to identify what harmful behaviors they might be experiencing and what harmful behaviors they might be using.

Wow. That's amazing. Alright, to wrap up today's conversation, which we will continue into next week, I just want to reiterate what we were talking about and that is, you know, I have this podcast here where I'm trying to help women learn to feel safer with more peace. But if we're only addressing one side of the issue.

Right. So preventing victims. What about the other side? And that's preventing perpetrators, right? So that's why I love, love, love Donna's work and what she's trying to do with our younger generations, right? They're developing into hu into these human adults, right? And so how can we come alongside them and help them?

And not perpetrate violence, and not experience violence. So she covered her level response. When somebody discloses to us, what are we gonna do? We are going to listen. We are going to empathize, we're going to validate, we're going to encourage, and we're going to link them to resources. So I hope that.

This helped you and I'm excited for part two where we're gonna talk about even more helpful things with Donna and how this plays out in the day to day, and how we can stop the spread of violence from generation to generation. So please do stay continued and join us next week for part two. Thanks for being here on the Aware and Prepared Podcast.

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