Introducing KCSARC’s New Podcast: The Link to Prevention

Hey, parents! Do you know how to talk to your child about affirmative consent? What about para-social relationships or being an upstander? Do these concepts sound familiar? If not, no worries.

These concepts are part of prevention education, a comprehensive, evidence-based education that addresses the root causes of interpersonal violence, including sexual assault. Prevention education is often taught to K-12 students, but what if the same information was available to parents and guardians?

The Link to Prevention is a new podcast hosted by the prevention education team at KCSARC. It serves as a guide to parents and guardians to gain a better understanding of what prevention is and how to support their child’s health and learning.

Some background:

As of 2020, Senate Bill 5395 requires public schools in Washington state to provide Comprehensive Sexual Health Education (CSHE) to all students K-12 starting this school year.  This state requirement has several components of sexual assault prevention included in this education, specifically:

1) Affirmative Consent

2) Boundaries

3) Healthy Relationships

4) Bystander Intervention

Discussing these topics serves as a way for schools to combat the high rates of unwanted sexual contact experienced by youth in our state, according to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).

KCSARC’s prevention team works with schools and districts throughout King County to help them meet these requirements.

Two staff members at Risdon Middle School, Maggi Kellogg, a 7th grade counselor, and Lachlan Willis, an 8^th grade teacher of social studies and leadership, are familiar with KCSARC’s prevention team and see the advantages of prevention work in schools.

“Risdon staff and students appreciate how KCSARC has done tremendous prevention education for Vera Risdon Middle School for 6 years now,” Maggi Kellogg said.

“They [KCSARC] provide appropriate grade level curriculum and resources and our students have improved outcomes including resilience and self-esteem, reduction of common mental health symptoms, increased knowledge of healthy relationships and improved academic achievement,” she said. “KCSARC understands and teaches that prevention protects a student’s overall health and quality of life.”

Lachlan Willis said “It’s great to have KCSARC come into our classroom because it gives the students a chance to hear from experts who have a wealth of experience outside of the academic world.”

“Students feel comfortable asking questions,” he said. “Hearing tough and serious topics in a way that makes sense to them, they are not getting the best messages from media and KCSARC calls it out and explains how to question it on their own; the messages brought help all students not just make safe and healthy choices but become better humans.”

Prevention at Home: Navigation and Conversation 

Parents and guardians have a powerful role in prevention; positive parental relationships, support and open communication are among the most protective factors for your child. When parents and guardians have regular conversations about concepts like consent and boundaries with their kids, they are enhancing their child’s resiliency and fostering a sense of accountability.

We hope The Link to Prevention podcast will help facilitate those conversations and is used as a navigation tool to start conversations about consent, safety, boundaries, and healthy relationships, which we know can be challenging!

Because parents and guardians are busy and on-the-go, our prevention team wanted to find a way to reach parents with information and resources that fits into their schedule, and we thought an audio podcast might do the trick.

Goals of The Link to Prevention

Unfortunately, we have seen a lot of misinformation about the way foundational concepts of sexual violence prevention education are taught. It’s no wonder parents may feel some apprehension when they learn their child will be receiving this information.

So, we want to open the doors to our lessons. The podcasts pull back the curtain and invite parents in as important collaborators.

Our goal is to empower parents and guardians through partnership and provide knowledge and language to have the conversations with their child that we started in the classroom. We also want to make it clear that we are not telling parents how to parent. They are the expert on their child.

We also want to let you know what your kids are asking us.

Child mental health experts, parent educators and legal advocates will join us in some episodes to offer their perspectives as we explore student’s questions about safety, boundaries and relationships that were submitted to us anonymously or are frequently asked of our prevention specialists.

Ultimately, our hope with The Link to Prevention podcast is to build community, stay curious, and occasionally use humor to connect with anyone committed to learning more about preventing sexual violence.

We hope you’ll connect with us this season on The Link to Prevention!

AND…if you were a regular listener to KCSARC’s Building Resilience podcast, don’t worry. Building Resilience episodes will still be available everywhere you listen to your podcasts.