We are now in the “Home Stretch” with this school year’s sessions. There are only 2 sessions left with each group. The topics we have discussed to date include Emotional language, Healthy Relationships, Consent, The effects of a porn addiction, What the world expects of men (“the male script”), What the world expects of women and “my personal code” (how I want to be known as a male).The sessions are based on a model of youth engagement and are interactive, and generally lively.

Sessions include check ins, energizers and focused discussions. The program has been designed so that each session is built off the last one with Healthy Relationships remaining the common thread. Our purpose for offering this program is based on the belief that young men need to be engaged in conversations that will make it possible for them to grow  up to have Healthy Relationships.

Our experience in working with the grade 7 and grade 9 boys is that they are wanting to have these conversations and are not only willing but eager to participate. We appreciate the Partnership with the United Way of Pictou County and the support of the students and staff at West Pictou and North Nova Schools that makes all of this possible. We look forward to the remaining sessions and will be posting more about the CMC in the near future.

Some feedback we received from the participants:

Grade 9’s     “its fun”     “its not hard like math”      “CMC is informative, its about new ideas and concepts like porn being addictive... I never thought of it that way” “#FreePlayDoh”    “I like the icebreakers and exercises”

​Grade 7’s     “Its good... we learn not to do certain things”   “CMC makes you think twice”   “It’s about going into things deeper... things that guys (usually) don’t talk about like       emotions and feelings”   “we are learning about the different experiences males & females have in the world”   “we are breaking the barriers of what’s expected of men... by talking about feelings and things like that”

​This week marks the halfway point in our first year of sessions with the young guys, both in West Pictou Consolidated with the Grade 7’s and at North Nova with the Grade 9’s.  To date, we have had great discussions about a variety of topics such as; Healthy relationships, Consent, and Exploring their perspective of what society expects from men.
 
Ron Kelly and Don Gunton enjoy learning much from these young men as they  walk this new road together.
 
Thanks go out again to the United Way of Pictou County for their valuable  support of this project as well as to both staff and administration of West Pictou Consolidated and at North Nova for helping to make this work possible.