‘This program allowed our girls to feel what control, stability, and boundaries could feel like in their own bodies and minds.’
Teacher, Brisbane Youth and Education Training Centre
Self Centre Program
‘I wish I learned this in school’
- a teacher in every Growing Matters program
‘A marker of healthy relationships isn’t in the absence of conflict, it’s in how we resolve it. For this, we need to build our tolerance for discomfort so that we can sit in an uncomfortable conversation and still feel connected by the end of it.
We can learn from each other even when we don’t agree.’
- Jade, Founder and Director of Red Thread Education
We offer two school programs for students that are flexible, meet learners where they are at, and layer learning holistically.
Both programs are centred around consent, designed to decentralise learning by emphasising that everyone has a role to play in healthy relationship education, and delivered using emergent teaching practices to shape relevant and meaningful learning experiences.
Both programs are uncomfortable by design, and held safely within a trauma-informed practice. Young people will be supported to build their tolerance for discomfort and supported to regulate through it in real-time and by the lesson’s end.
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Self Centre is a clay-based program that supports young people to practice healthy relationship skills by learning how to self-regulate through discomfort, problem-solve with confidence, and communicate boundaries as needed.
It is a safe tactile experience that simultaneously places the learner outside of their comfort zone to take risks that strengthen their confidence to make informed choices in strength-based, regulated ways.
Most significantly, the learning is facilitated in ways that build communication skills that actively practice language of consent.
Conversations are curated in response to the dynamics of the individual with the group and their learning needs at the time.
Observations of body feedback will be connected to conversations around the following themes:
Managing expectations (fear, judgement, comparison, shame)
Processing emotions (grief, anger, joy)
Agency and choices (reaction versus response)
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Growing Matters is a conversation-based program that supports young people to practice healthy relationship skills by learning how to co-regulate through discomfort, problem solve collaboratively, and respond respectfully to boundaries.
It is a dynamic conversation that is led by curiosity, and delivered in socially, emotionally and culturally safe ways that remove shame and create connection.
Most significantly, it strengthens learners’ tolerance for discomfort in difficult conversations with others, their ability to regulate themselves and the people around them, and their capacity to find common ground when resolving differences.
Language of consent and the practice of setting and receiving boundaries respectfully are woven through every interaction and conversation.
Conversations are contextualised and curated around de-stigmatised, evidence-based body literacy education on:
hormones
menstrual cycles
safe sex practices
reproductive systems
drug and alcohol education
porn literacy
consent
emotions
health advocacy