Bakodyampm

Building Safer School Communities Through Prevention and Relational Responses with Students and Families

Morning Concurrent Session #2: 10:45 - 11:45 - (Red 1823)

Afternoon Concurrent Session: 13:00 - 14:00 - (Yellow 2814)

Creating school communities where students feel safe, supported, connected, and ready to learn requires a proactive approach to student well-being and child protection. This session will explore how the Canadian Centre for Child Protection's Kids in the Know program and a plethora of resources and training from Canada’s leading organization can help schools strengthen personal safety education and child safeguarding practices across the school community.

Designed for principals and vice-principals, this session will examine how Kids in the Know learning and teaching resources for grades primary-12 support educators in teaching developmental and age-appropriate concepts related to healthy relationships, personal boundaries, online safety, help-seeking, and recognizing unsafe situations. Through a leadership lens, participants will explore practical strategies for implementing prevention education in their schools. They will become familiar with the Youth NCDII (non-consensual distribution of intimate images) framework and learn how to support restorative responses when young people make missteps online involving intimate images. Participants will also examine ways to engage staff in meaningful professional learning that helps build a school culture where safety, trust, and student well-being are embedded in everyday practice.

In this session, participants will learn:

how Kids in the Know equips students with personal safety and relationship skills and strategies that can help reduce their vulnerability to victimization both online and offline, act to be a bystander when they see harm being done and aligns with the gender-based violence efforts Nova Scotia is undertaking through curriculum grades Primary-12.
how to use the Youth NCDII: A Guide for Schools framework to effectively address incidents of non-consensual distribution of intimate images through a restorative, relationship-based approach that supports students, families, and staff while maintaining a strong sense of belonging and connectedness across the school community.
about resources that are available to schools from C3P that address emerging child protection concerns, and the suite of C3P programs and online training available in Nova Scotia to all educators through the GNSPES landing page (including, Commit to Kids that supports staff understanding of child sexual abuse, grooming behaviours, professional boundaries, and safeguarding practices).
leadership strategies for implementing school-wide prevention education and staff professional learning when time is limited
strategies to strengthen a culture of safety and child safeguarding across the school community, how to partner effectively with families, and respond to challenges in ways that preserve belonging, connectedness, and well-being.

Natalie Bakody

Natalie Bakody is the Health Education and Physical Education Curriculum Consultant at the NS Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, where she has had the privilege of working with and learning alongside equally passionate and knowledgeable health educators within government, the public and post-secondary school system, and community health provincially and nationally. She recently played a leadership role in the development of gender-based violence curriculum grades primary-12 alongside the review and selection of resources and professional learning to support implementation. Natalie has been working with and learning from colleagues at C3P for most of her career at the Department and could not be more thrilled for this in-person opportunity for system leaders to learn from them in this session. Their expertise could not be more timely.

Natalie holds a Bachelor of Science in Health Education from Dalhousie University and a Master of Education in Curriculum Studies with a focus on educational leadership and social justice from Mount Saint Vincent University. She held various positions before joining the Department in 2006, including classroom teacher primary-9, Reading Recovery teacher and Literacy Coach. She recently taught an evening class in the B Ed program and was inspired by emerging teachers' passion for teaching all aspects of Health Education with confidence and competence when supported by school administrators.

Elizabeth Hammond

Elizabeth Hammond is the Director of Education at the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P), where she leads the development, implementation, and evaluation of national education and prevention initiatives to help reduce child sexual abuse, namely through the programs Kids in the Know and Commit to Kids. She also works with various stakeholders to further these initiatives, as well as tiered prevention measures, to help protect children from sexual victimization.

Elizabeth holds a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Education, and a Master of Education in counselling. She has held various positions in the education system, working as a classroom teacher, resource teacher, and school counsellor. Prior to joining C3P, she spent 12 years as a school principal.

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