Healthy Teen Relationships & Violence Prevention (Part 2): Peer Advocacy & Resources Bloom 365

What if the power to reduce teen violence isn’t just in the hands of adults — but in the hands of teens themselves?
 In this powerful continuation of Episode 1, Donna Bartos shares how BLOOM365 equips young people to become changemakers through peer-to-peer advocacy and culture-shifting leadership. You’ll hear how just 10% of a population can influence an entire school, team, or community — and how BLOOM is activating that tipping point across the country.

We dive into:

💥 The Peer Advocate Academy – a training that equips teens with:
 💡 Education: Understanding the signs of abuse and how to prevent it
💬 Advocacy: Using the “LEVEL” method to support friends in crisis
📣 Activation: Launching First Friday awareness campaigns in schools
📢 Amplification: Elevating their voices through public speaking and self-care

🌐 The Peer Influencer Training – for college students and military personnel, tackling the "elephants in the room" like underreporting and barriers to seeking help.

🧠 Plus, the social psychology behind BLOOM365’s movement: the 10% Tipping Point Theory — and how it’s changing communities from the inside out.

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

 Hey, brave one. Welcome to the Aware and Prepared Podcast. I'm your host, Mandy Pratt, trauma-informed, resilient 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.

Hey, welcome back to the Aware and Prepared Podcast where Donna Bartos is here with me continuing our conversation from last week where we talked about uprooting abuse and what can we do and how best do we respond when somebody discloses abuse. To us. I hope you found that helpful. If you didn't listen to it, definitely do.

So. Let's continue on in our conversation this week with part two. Thanks for being here. There are two things that really prompted me to have sleepless nights and write as many grants as I could, and really pitched this program to anyone who would listen. The first was. Back in 2013, 2014, we were renting a house.

We, we, you know, got ourselves into that awful time during the recession where we lost our home and we had to rent a home and all the things. So we were renting a house and before, um, we were moving in. The landlord of the home had her son was gonna have her son come to the house and help me install.

Window air conditioners, 'cause it was an old house and didn't have air conditioning and it was summer. Mm-hmm. But before she did that, I shared with her the work that I had done. And at the time I was an interim executive director for residential domestic violence sexual assault organization in New Jersey.

And she said, wow, can you help my son? He's a teen and he's gonna be the death of me. He harms his girlfriend, he harms me. I don't know what to do with him. He sees a psychiatrist, he's on meds, but no one can help him. He is so violent. Wow. And at the time, and I said, I have no idea how to help him, but you or his girlfriend, you know, we have all of these services at the organization I was with and Right.

And you know, here's what's there for you. But. I don't know anything available for him other than him continuing to see his counselor and, and do all the things. Well, he came over a couple days later and I was in the house alone with him installing air conditioners and I was trying to like assess and like figure out.

I knew about risk factors and protective factors, like trying to figure out how I can encourage this kid. And I knew I was gonna see him throughout the duration of our lease because we were living on a property that this his mom specifically bought, so that their family could hunt. It was on acreage, so he would have to park by our, our little cottage and then go hunt the land.

And so I would see him, you know, occasionally. So I thought, well, maybe he is got, like someone else encourages him in his life. I don't know. Yeah. So we left, we moved back to Arizona, that was in Pennsylvania. We moved back to Arizona and then I get a call, you know, Hey, turn on the tv, and, and we're watching the TV and we see his face pop up.

Uh oh. That he had brutally murdered four. It was four of his friends that he then buried on the property that we were renting from. Oh my gosh. I thought in that moment I was in the company and he did it like in a, in a progression of a serial killer who the mom identified the red flags. And then I blame me and I know it wasn't my fault and I couldn't help.

Hmm. And I thought, how many more young people out there are like this that are not receiving specific help to address. There are issues with power and control, abuse and violence. Right. You know, because we keep putting it in the mental health bucket and, and Yes. Yeah. Individuals have mental illness and might be harm doers, but the millions of people that have mental health illness are not harm doers.

Yes. Right? Yeah. So we're not addressing these fundamental issues of control and feeling so powerless. Mm. That the only way to gain power and control is through harming others. Right. And so we came back to Arizona. I'm like, oh my gosh. Like, what are we gonna do? Get the 29% data going? And then the final straw was, it was the time when my kids were applying to colleges.

They both were taking the acts at the same time, and our mailbox was loaded with, um, brochures from colleges across, around the world, like loaded so much. And I'm going through them to see if anything was interesting for them. And then I come across this big postcard. And on the postcard, I wish I saved it or took a picture of it, and I did not.

There were 12 cans of pink mace on the front and it said, your daughter's getting ready to go off to college, make sure she's safe and protected. Here's our deal for a dozen cans of pink mace and the back of my mind, I thought, well, where's the postcard with the blue mace for my son? And, and the narrative that they were putting out there was she's about to go to college, make sure that she knows how to defend herself against the predators and the perpetrators that are likely going to harm her.

And I thought if we continue to put the responsibility of ending victimization on the shoulders of those who are vulnerable or those who experience it, we are never going. To stop it. And that's why I said that's it. We've gotta do this differently. We, yes, we need victim services, but we also need interventions for young people who are at risk.

Mm-hmm. So that we can get to the root of it and start preventing it, preventing harm from continuing again, which in our work is called secondary prevention interrupting harm so it doesn't happen again. Mm-hmm. And that, you know, that whole message, you mentioned self defense and I get it like being empowered.

There's some, there's healing in that and feeling like you can protect yourself. I get it. That is not primary prevention. Right, right. You know that it's kind of like you were saying, it's kind of aftercare or we were talking about what I was doing. 'cause I went and did a talk at IVA about taking back control, self-defense as an empowerment tool for victims.

'cause that's what helped me. Yeah. But the uh. I was talking about too, what empowerment self-defense means, and that is acknowledging that there is no victim blaming. So I really feel like it's two sides of the coin. Like, yes, we can do that, but while we're doing that, we also need to do what you're doing and help these young people growing up usually in, you know, they're being harmed too and stopping that cycle and.

You know, changing, not creating a more abusers and those who do violence. So yeah, a hundred percent. Um, I love That's prevention. Yes. Like primary prevention. There's, you know, there are different waves of it. The bad is true primary prevention work. Right. And the rest is so important. It's on this continuum.

There's no one that's more important than the other. Sure. Yeah. But we see where the funding has been, at least until recently. Yeah. The funding has been an after harm, tertiary prevention, important billions. Mm-hmm. But for primary prevention, minimal. Minimal resources and investment, uh, has been placed in primary prevention work.

Right. Yeah. It's so interesting 'cause it's like lopsided because we wouldn't have to help victims if there weren't as many victims. Right. So like, it's just, it's kind of counterintuitive when you really think about it because it's, and when you, you think about too, like. What funds or where does the money come from to fund these services?

Well, traditionally, again, up until recently, they came from the federal government, the Department of Justice, to hone in and provide service and support healing and safety to victims of crime. Mm-hmm. By the billions important, essential work has been happening for decades because. Our government said this is essential, and states can't do this alone.

Mm-hmm. We need to empower states and support states and invest in the state's ability to dull out these dollars to make sure that victims of crime are supported and healing and healed and safe. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. That's super important. Definitely. I know with such a heavy topic. Why don't we give them something light to to go out with.

So tell us more about your peer to peer. And how you get the teenagers involved and, 'cause I know, like in my own work, when I go speak at schools and I, I help teens as well, just mainly by sharing my story. And they always wanna know like, how are you okay Miss Mandy? Like, what the heck? You know? And so I share that part of it too.

But a lot of them will say like, can you tell us like, we actually don't know how to get help. So there's these resources. But they don't actually know how to get them. So level is good. 'cause that can be the bridge, right? 'cause that last L is link. The link. So we're telling them about these resources. So can you tell us more about, of course, how people reach out to you and all of that.

But also you do, you train teens so they can help their peers. So can you share about that as well as we finish? Yeah, sure. Well. I always share this hope is the belief that things can change for the better. And if I didn't have hope that we truly could uproot abuse in a generation, I would no longer be doing this work.

Sure. Especially right now in the, the temperature that we're in Right. At the, you know, with what's going on around our nation. Mm-hmm. Like why would I continue to, to. Put myself or our team in the face of all of this secondary trauma. Mm-hmm. Why? Why would we do that? Because we know that this is preventable.

So the peer-to-peer theory of change really goes back to the 10% tipping point theory of change. Rensselaer did a study and what they found was that all it takes is 10% of a population. To do something visible enough for others to take note. And if that sticks, that's enough to change culture. Wow. So all it takes is 10%, whether it is of a school community, of a sports team, of a family, of a community, of a nation to adopt something that's visible.

For the other 90% to say, okay, let's make that change. And I'll give you an example. So our 10% tipping point theory of change has been proven over time. You know, the, the smart people at Rensselaer caught onto this. When we think about technology, I was the last person to have a Blackberry in my corporate family.

I did not wanna let go of my blackberry for some reason. I loved pushing buttons several times to send a text funny, and so I would always go to these meetings or conferences, and for the longest time, everybody had a blackberry, and then things started to change. I would notice people were taking these things called selfies with these things called smartphones.

I'm like, what is that thing? No buttons. I can't just use a screen. And then ultimately, I was not an early adopter. I was not part of the 10% that switched to a smartphone, but 10% of the population switched to a smartphone and that was enough for the other 90% to say, what is that thing interesting? Oh, I better, I better go trade in my blackberry.

And now what's the norm? The smartphone. And yeah, it changes over time, but it's still the norm. Sure. So. Fashion has the same theory of change to it. The seventies bell bottoms were in and bright colors and all the things. Uhhuh. Coming to eighties, we were getting rid of the bell bottoms and we were into those balloon pants and members only jackets.

Big bangs, big bangs, leg warmers, all the things, you know, leg warmers replaced the bell bottoms because 10% of the population said That's no longer cool, and let's go with something different when it comes to violence prevention. Our goal at Bloom 365, our big, hairy audacious goal is to educate and activate 10% of young people and the trusted adults in their lives by the year 2030.

So that means getting out there to as many places as possible online, in schools, in community, across. The United States and have 10% adopt, whether it's level and start leveling or adopt what we call our first Friday campaigns and get out there and raise awareness on the first Friday of April during sexual assault awareness month on the first Friday in October.

During domestic Violence Awareness month and the first Friday in February during Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month to go into their communities, their schools, their workplaces, and encourage and motivate their peers and and others around them to wear that awareness color on that first Friday of the month.

Mm-hmm. The goal would be if there's a campus with 1000 students, that at minimum 110% mm-hmm. Wear that color. On the first Friday of the awareness month so that the other 900 say. What's going on? What's this purple about? Yeah. Now they're starting to learn about domestic violence, understand what resources are available, have conversations on how to prevent it, show visibly their support to survivors, but show so visibly that they're not gonna tolerate anymore.

They're gonna start taking away power from those who do harm. But hopefully through that, especially if they're young peers, encourage them to seek help if they recognize that they're doing these things. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's very simplistic. So our peer-to-peer programs, we have two, we have a peer advocate training academy that we.

Hold every year in partnership with the National Organization for Victim Advocacy or Nova. Mm-hmm. And we hold them periodically throughout the year in places that bring us in to do it. Mm-hmm. That's primarily for teens. And they learn, they go through the seven doses, so they're, they go through an education track, so they get all that information that their peers might be getting in health class.

And then we go through an advocate track where they get the level response training. So they know how to level with their peers if they disclose victimization, and then they go through and activate track, where they learn how to activate their first Friday campaigns, how to activate that 10% ways to get to that tipping point.

And then we go through an amplify phase where they learn how to amplify their voice. Through public speaking also amplify self-care through some meditation and other things, and just amplify all that they've learned so that they can get out there and be peer advocates on their school campuses. Then the other peer-to-peer program that we have is our peer influencer training.

That's primarily for 18 to 24 year olds in military installations and college campuses, where we take it an extra step beyond the peer Advocate Academy, learning all the same things, but really focusing on the elephants in the room. What are the elephants in the room on their military base? On their college campus that need to be addressed immediately.

And how do they work peer-to-peer to have influence to change those elephants in the room. Mm-hmm. Whether it's barriers to seeking help or the, the numbers of sexual assaults that are going unreported, whatever it is, so that they can influence that change in their communities. Hmm. So those programs, um, give me a lot of hope and a lot of promise that.

All we need is 10% to be activated after they go through these trainings to continue this work, to continue the awareness work, to continue the peer-to-peer work, and to continue working on those elephants in the room. Love it. I love how there's so many teens now who really wanna get involved and help with this.

So if they are interested in that, how do they find that info? How do they connect with you guys? So they can go to Instagram, bloom 365 where we post a lot of information on our Peer Advocate Academy. We just released a promo video for the upcoming Peer Advocate Academy, um, which will be in July. And usually we have the one in partnership with Nova during the month of July.

So, uh, that's someplace where they can find it. They can go to the website Bloom 360 five.org. They can also send me an email or a text. My email is Donna at Bloom 365 usa. Org or they can text me at 6 0 2 5 2 4 9 6 0 7. I will block anyone inappropriate giving that. I'll block you immediately. Um, but you know, they can reach out and if, if they wanna bring this to their school campus or college campus or community, then we can talk about that.

We'll do the first one, but then the goal is to train them to continue it and do subsequent peer advocate academies for their peers. Love it. That's amazing. So everything you do, would that be on the Bloom? 360 five.org? So our website is currently, um, getting a revamp. So Bloom 360 five.org is gonna become the website really, that shares information on our direct services, our counseling, behavioral health interventions, victim advocacy programs, helpline case management, and then programs called Safety for All for Youth with Disability.

So kind of. All of the direct services for After Harm Care or interventions, um, for those who are already using these behaviors. And then Bloom 365 usa.org is going to become the website that's going to have all of our trainings, all of our academies, and all of the technical assistance that we are going to be offering to youth serving organizations or adult centered organizations that wanna stand up youth centered advocacy and programming.

So that new website will launch by July of 2025, and then you'll be able to kind of navigate them a little bit better. Right now, frankly, it's a hot mess. There's so much on our website, but the best way to track currently what we have going on at present is through Instagram. 'cause our, our social media digital outreach manager is incredible and is always ahead of the game and always putting out great information there and then promoting our upcoming academies.

That's awesome. Great. Well, I will be sure to include all of that in the show notes, and so people can just click on the episode and then they can click directly on the link there and go to find you there. So as we sign off, are there any last things you would like to say or leave with the people who are listening?

I, hopefully you'll listen to Upward Abuse Podcast and find some little tips and tools there. Um, but if you have something to say about this, especially if you are the parent of a young person who has used. Verbal, emotional, physical, or sexual violence, or if you are a parent of, you know, maybe you yourself, experienced domestic violence and your child witnessed, you know, how did they navigate through that?

How did you open the door to protective factors for them so that they, they were. Protected from the harms that could be associated with witnessing abuse or violence. I think these are the conversations that we need to have. Mm-hmm. Um, and especially young people, you know? Yep. I would love to hear from young people, like, what are you doing in your schools or in your communities or college campuses to lead the way?

Because there's so much amazing work being done by young advocates out there that. We're not celebrating enough and a sidebar, we will be standing up again, our Empathy Awards, which is an awards program to honor young people. Mm-hmm. Doing this work. Love it. Because usually love adults getting the awards.

Totally. Teens or young people. So if you know a young person or a teen in your community who truly emulates empathy. Understands how their decisions affect others. Truly show up without judgment and with kindness who might be deserving of an empathy, a world award reach out to. Cool. Thank you so much.

Thank you for your time with us and especially for all the work you're doing. You're doing a lot and it's all amazing, so thank you. Thank you for having me. You're welcome. Can't wait to have you on my show. Yay. Amanda comes on. Awesome. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks for being here on the Aware and Prepared Podcast.

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