This semester a group of student leaders at Steamboat Springs High School have embarked on a near-peer educational opportunity aimed at starting a conversation with middle school-aged youth about the core principles of healthy relationships.

“When these kids get older and they start to enter high school and college, these are the lessons that have been taught to them, and this is kind of all they know before they actually enter that scene themselves,” said Amelie Wild, a senior SSHS who played a key role in getting the program up and running.

“I’m hoping that, if we are able to get this information across to them in a way, that they’re able to retain it, that they’ll start to improve the culture and the climate that we’ve seen in the high school, and that we will hopefully start to not see in college,” Wild continued. “It’s obvious that in the adult world and in the high school world, there’s a lot of issues with that.”

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The idea behind the Relationship Rookies pilot program dates back to 2019 when the Steamboat Springs School District’s Culture and Climate Task Force identified near-peer education as a potential component of their plans to improve student behavior and reduce sexual misconduct. At the time, there were no existing local models to guide the program, so the idea remained dormant.

The project, which was taken up by Better Tomorrow and supported by grant funding from the Tony Grampass Youth Services Program, became viable after Wild took volunteer training at Better Tomorrow, the home of Advocates of Routt County and COMMA Projects.

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Wild, who is president of the Sailor Senate at SSHS, wanted to bring back what she learned in the training related to sexual misconduct and relationship abuse to her classmates, hoping to start a conversation about what students could do around these issues. During that training, she also discovered the Level Up Initiative developed by Better Tomorrow for the Culture and Climate Task Force.

COMMA Program Director Graham Hackett explained that the Level Up Initiative is collection of projects and programs intended to reach the entire school community with engagement and learning opportunities for students, parents, teachers and school officials. Wild ended up focusing on one project within the Level Up Initiative that she felt she and her classmates could accomplish.

The group presented the idea to the Steamboat Springs school board at the end of last semester while evaluating an existing healthy relationship workshop that could be modified to established a near-peer leaning program, and the program was rolled out this semester.

With coaching support from the COMMA Projects, Advocates’ Bilingual Confidential Youth Advocate Cristina Camacho and Better Tomorrow volunteer Gabbi Brault, the Relationship Rookies prepared and delivered presentations in four middle school health classes.

Those presentations covered the core principals of healthy relationships including consent, personal boundaries, communication and decision-making for healthy relationships. Hackett said the group is hoping to do one more presentation at Sleeping Giant School at the end of April.

The pilot program is led by a group of students from Steamboat Springs High School including Wild and her classmates Anna Richman, Zoe Anfang, Connor Frithsen, Thomas Miller, Ashley Anfang, Michael Hagney, Addy Armstrong, Morgan Yeiser and Victoria Santos Reyna, who were all eager to be a part of the program and stepped up to enter sixth-grade health classes at Steamboat Springs Middle School to make presentations.

The program is also supported by Steamboat Springs High School Principal Jay Hamric and Heidi Chapman-Hoy at Steamboat Springs Middle School, as well as SSMS health teacher Marco Cuevas.

Hackett said plans are already in the works to continue and hopefully grow the Relationship Rookies teen leadership project in the future.

“The fact that we are closer to (the sixth grade students) in age takes away the awkwardness that’s usually very present with these kinds of presentations coming from adults in health classes,” Wild said. “They ask us things like, ‘Have you ever kissed anyone?’ something they don’t normally ask the adults who are leading the health classes.”

She believes the middle school students feel more comfortable and actively involved in the classes because they are led by high school students.

“They make jokes and laugh and ask questions, whereas I remember when we had to learn about these things in middle school — it was probably the most awkward day all year,” Wild said.

Her hope is the comfort level will help the middle school students retain more of what the high school students are offering, whether it comes in the form of a skit or a handshake game that illustrates the importance of consent.

“It’s cool because we’re kind of close in age to them, so that they can relate to us more,” said Ashley Anfang, a senior who added that the middle school students also ask if they are involved in high school sports or other activities. “So when we’re telling them about relationships that we’ve had or experiences that we’ve dealt with, they can kind of relate to us more than an adult coming in and telling them this stuff.”

While the high school students admit they are still learning about these topics themselves, they also believe they have valuable knowledge for those heading to high school in a few short years.

“I was once in their position. This is an opportunity to bring this knowledge to them and help them along their journey,” Hagney said. “I think that’s really valuable as a peer mentor, almost as valuable as seeing these kids realizing something we have said in the presentation.”

Sophomore Zoe Anfang, who will lead the program next year, said every presentation and every class has been a unique experience with different points resonating with the sixth grade students.

“This is the first year that Advocates has done it, so that’s been super cool,” Zoe Anfang said. “It’s been great, us all collaborating together. … It’s just been really fun to watch it all come together and be a part of collaborating with the younger grades.”

Miller, a senior at SSHS, said the group uses a mixture of methods to reach the sixth graders, and he feels that the group’s messages were heard based on the interest and questions coming from the younger students.

“It’s not too hard to connect because we are right in front of them in a class setting,” Miller said. “We were in their shoes once, and I think it’s really cool to try to capture these kids’ attention. We are a little bit older with more experience and we have that experience to share. I think that’s the best way to have retention is just to have something more relatable.”

Hackett said he applauds the effort, time, focus and spirit invested by the students leading the new program.

“This type of project is young people investing in their own community and the safety of not just their peers but adding to this mutual understanding of the scope and nature of the problems around sexual misconduct and relationship abuse,” Hackett said. “The fact that the community has come together to support these young leaders, the idea that these young leaders are potentially having a massive impact on the culture and climate of the high school in the future … the investment that these young people have displayed in this project is going to have a substantial impact and is a perfect model for how it could be done.”