IMPACT Basics Adult Women and Teens – 20 Hours
Adult Men and Teens – 16 Hours
Coed Adult and Teens 16 – 20 hours
This comprehensive program offers training in a range of personal safety skills, including verbal strategies, psychological and mental readiness, and physical fighting techniques. All skills are practiced in interactive scenarios with one-on-one coaching from instructors. Physical skills are practiced full contact, full force against fully padded instructors trained in recreating common harassment and assault scenarios. Students learn how to shorten the “freeze” response to fear and danger, assess and respond quickly to a confrontation, manage the effects of adrenaline, and act with intention to protect their lives and safety.
Prepare Children’s Classes (Grades 1 – 5, coed) - 6 hours
Age-appropriate personal safety education classes work to strengthen children’s emotional and psychological integrity and focus on developing smart safety habits when dealing with strangers and people they know. Training includes awareness and avoidance of danger, how to make themselves unattractive targets for crime, emotional and physical boundary setting, and how to strike and flee to safety when necessary. Students learn how to confront bullying behavior, stop unwelcome attention and inappropriate physical contact, and access appropriate adult help. All skills are practiced in interactive scenarios with one-on-one coaching from instructors.
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Prepare Young Teen Workshop (Grades 6 and 7, coed) – 9 hours
This program is ideal for a young person who is not yet ready for the Adult and Teen Basics class, but needs more than the Prepare Children’s classes. Using the same one-on-one coaching and intensive role playing, this workshop addresses personal safety issues on a deeper and more sophisticated level. Scenarios include moving around on one’s own (public transportation), being home alone, group dating and social relationships, and general street safety behavior.
Advanced Classes for Basics graduates
Upon completion of Basics, students are eligible to enroll in our Advanced Basics, Defense Against Armed Assailants, and Defense Against Multiple Assailant programs. Contact the office for further information.
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FAQ’S REGARDING CLASSES FOR TEENS AND CHILDREN
What is "Personal Safety"?
- We define personal safety in a broad context. Personal safety is external awareness of our environment, choices about how we behave, how we speak to others, and how we let others speak to us. In its simplest sense, it is the skills needed to set limits in situations that make us uncomfortable or are potentially dangerous. It includes how we feel about ourselves (self esteem, self efficacy, and confidence), how we relate to our bodies, and how to trust our instincts.
How do you teach personal safety skills to children?
- Our educational model emphasizes concept-based learned reinforced by repetitive role-plays. We teach by positive reinforcement and learning through success. Simple safety rules are presented in a straightforward and understandable manner. All of the teaching material is age-appropriate so students can easily learn the information. The Workshop curriculum follows the recommendations of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
How can this program lower children’s anxiety?
- Giving children information about safety is part of our responsibility as adults. Education does not raise children’s anxiety; it actually can lower anxiety by providing them with a plan and teaching them self-reliance. Teaching self-defense is similar to teaching your children other safety skills, such as how to cross the street or how to use a kitchen knife. It is not necessary to discuss the details of being hit by a car or cut by a sharp knife to learn safe conduct, just as it is not necessary to discuss the details of child abuse or molestation to learn self defense.
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School Programs For Teens And Children
Prepare offers on-site age-appropriate and gender-appropriate personal safety education with curriculum of 6 hours for lower school, 10-12 hours for middle school, and 12-20 hours for upper school. Classes cover a range of personal safety skills, including verbal strategies, psychological and mental readiness, awareness and avoidance of confrontation, and physical fighting techniques. Physical skills are practiced full contact, full force against fully padded instructors. Students learn how to be street smart, set limits with peers, and assert themselves in relationships. All skills are practiced in interactive scenarios with one-on-one coaching from instructors.
Personal Safety/Anti-Bias Education
Our workshops are designed to empower students and enhance their personal safety. Skills are taught using real life scenarios that recreate the types of challenges that children and teenagers are likely to encounter. Scenarios include street crime, bullying, teasing, peer pressure, social cruelty, relationships, and unwelcome attention.
Our approach to education emphasizes better communication skills as the foundation for personal safety. Students learn how to recognize and protect their emotional and physical integrity by practicing communication skills to express difficult thoughts and feelings. Students learn through success and gain confidence in their ability to handle themselves in challenging situations.
Teaching Communication Skills, Assertiveness and Physical Self Defense Strategies
Our hands-on approach emphasizes practice in realistic role-playing scenarios. By rehearsing in a safe environment, students experience what it feels like to stand up for themselves and others in a wide variety of uncomfortable situations. They become comfortable and adept at saying, “No” when they mean no and saying, “Yes” when they mean yes.
Physical Boundaries with Strangers
Students learn to:
- recognize danger from a distance
- use street-smart behavior, body language, and awareness to avoid being targeted for assault
- verbally and physically enforce boundaries
- deal with bullies and hate crimes
Physical and Emotional Boundaries with People We Know
Students learn to:
- recognize the stages of progressive boundary violation that can result in inappropriate or unwelcome physical contact, acquaintance rape and regretted sexual experiences
- deal with peer pressure, drug use, and inappropriate risk taking
- identify what verbal and physical options are successful in stopping an assault
- take preventative measures and apply commonsense rules
Transforming the School Environment through Allied Behavior
Walk the Talk Workshops provides training to all school community members to support a caring and inclusive school culture. Walk the Talk participants learn to speak up and take action against bias, social cruelty, bullying, and exclusion. The Walk the Talk curriculum focuses on:
- SELF AWARENESS and the cultivation of a positive self-concept and group identity
- CRITICAL THINKING about bias and stereotypes and their impact on relationships and communities
- SKILLS to set boundaries and communicate powerfully and respectfully
- COURAGE to address social cruelty and exclusion and to advocate for each other as allies in creating a caring and inclusive school culture.
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School Programs And How To Start
We are proud to say that our school programs continue to grow in scope and number of participating schools. Just as our corporate and community workshop programs are designed to suit any group’s needs, so are our school programs. There are many types of schedules available – from intensive one day workshops of three-to-six hours to a full semester of curriculum-based programming offered through physical education or health education departments.
Schools, students and parents love Prepare programs. The best results occur when all the students in a grade can be educated, along with parents and faculty. In that way, all members of the community have the same information and a common language to discuss difficult issues such as teasing, bullying, peer pressure, drug use, alcohol use, scapegoating, dating, and more. By training parents and faculty, we create a large number of positive adult role models to reinforce the lessons learned. We still think the best way to keep young people safe is for the adults in their lives to model positive, effective behavior.
To get started, talk to the decision-makers at the school – head of the parents association, the principal or head of school, head of the physical education department, or health and lifeskills department. For lower and middle schools, suggest that they read The Safe Zone and Protecting the Gift, both wonderful books. The Safe Zone will provide the decision-makers with a good feel for how we approach the subject of personal safety and how we present information. Protecting the Gift is another excellent book for adults to read for their own education. It strongly recommends our children’s programs. The pricing for workshops is the same as the pricing for corporate and community group programs. We offer special pricing for lengthier programs and larger numbers of students.
The Berkeley Carroll School · Brooklyn, NY
The Chapin School · New York, NY
Collier High School · Wickatunk, NJ
Drew University · Madison, NJ
Far Hills Country Day School · Far Hills, NJ
Greenwich Academy · Greenwich, CT
The Kent Place School · Summit, NJ
The Nightingale-Bamford School · New York, NY
Packer Collegiate Institute · Brooklyn, NY
Rodeph Sholom · New York, NY
Red Oaks School· Morristown, NJ
The Sacred Heart Academy · Greenwich, CT
The Spence School · New York, NY
Stuart Country Day School · Princeton, NJ
The Trinity School · New York, NY
United Nations International School · New York, NY
The Village Community School · New York, NY
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Endorsements Of Our Teen And Children’s Programs
"One of the best features of the IMPACT programs is that kids are coached in recognizing and confronting inappropriate conduct — sometimes from adults they already know. They’re taught that they will be believed if they report such an incident and that other adults are on their side."
Instruction Power Play
New York Magazine
"Designed with the guidance of child psychologists and therapists, IMPACTclasses focus on instilling in children a healthy sense of boundaries, a respect for their own bodies and physical space through role playing which teaches them verbal skills, physical awareness, and avoidance techniques."
Being Prepared is the Best Defense
New York Famil
"The IMPACT training brings many gifts, the most profound of which is the permanent, visible, quantifiable change that graduates experience. It comes from learning — deep in their cells — that no creature in nature is defenseless."
Gavin de Becker
Best selling author Protecting the Gift and The Gift of Fear
"Children are far more likely to be victimized by someone they know. For all the warnings we give about strangers, we rarely train our children how to handle a situation that involves a friend, relative or someone else they know and trust."
The Safe Zone
Los Angeles Children
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Prepare offers customized leadership and communication seminars, Introductory self defense workshops, and/or staff development training. Each program is designed to empower participants to become more effective leaders, communicators, and/or providers of services and care. Special programs are geared to meet specific goals of the group and may focus on confidence and assertiveness, decision-making, conflict resolution, personal safety, and emotional and physical self-efficacy. Seminars have been offered to executives, attorneys, consultants, coaches, educators, sales teams, medical professionals, and social service, youth development and mental health professionals. Introductory Workshops are also popular for community organizations and private groups.
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Corporate Workshops
Participants and employers are often amazed by the positive effects that a course like ours can have. Since the human response to fear, crisis, challenge or stress is a rush of adrenaline, we teach using real life scenarios that allow participants to feel what it is like to experience the adrenal state and to grow more acclimated to functioning effectively while adrenalized.
Although the physical safety skills are often the highlight of our program, our classes cover more than just how to stay safe or how to intervene in a confrontation. Learning how to listen carefully, think clearly, problem-solve, and give direction under high levels of stress is much more difficult while in this adrenal state.
We help participants recognize how to apply these skills in work situations. Participants tell us they feel more confident, relaxed, and prepared to handle challenges and stress with more poise and grace. Our graduates often report that they bring the same feeling of safety, empowerment, and communication skills from their Prepare training into their daily personal and professional lives.
Training Benefits
Some of the positive effects of Prepare training for employees include:
• ability to handle stress
• increased patience and tolerance of colleagues
• improved confidence and self-esteem
• motivation to handle new and challenging work
• ability to provide clear and complete direction and feedback
• creative and flexible problem solving
• leadership development
• greater general awareness
Prepare Corporate Workshops and Leadership Seminars can be customized to focus on a variety of goals to meet the needs of any organization.
Team leadership
• Giving clear direction
• Creating communication protocols
• Coaching and mentoring skills
• Evaluations/giving and getting feedback
• Recognizing complementary skill sets
Personal leadership
• Presentation skills
• Creative problem solving
• Improving performance during stress and crisis
Professional development
• Dealing with stress and crisis
• Building peer support systems
• Enhancing group cohesion
• Recognizing and building on personal strengths
• Leadership skills
Communication skills
• Handling difficult customers and vendors
• Handling tension with supervisors and colleagues
• Setting boundaries and limits
Health and safety
• Safety while traveling
• Boundaries and limits
• Recognizing progressive stages of violence
• Trusting instincts
Sexual harassment
• Definitions
• Preventions
• Interventions
• Reporting