Spruce Run-Womancare Alliance working to end violence

 Through education in school-based programs

By Stuart Hedstrom
Staff Writer

DOVER-FOXCROFT — For more than 20 years the Spruce Run-Womancare Alliance — several years ago the Piscataquis County-based Womancare merged with Spruce Run in Penobscot County — has shared its violence prevention programs in area schools. The efforts are designed to create social change from the ground up, by teaching students through age-appropriate lessons to practice respect, kindness and nonviolence in all their relationships.

Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom

EDUCATING TO PUT AN END TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE — As part of its mission to end violence at home and in the community, the Spruce-Run Womancare Alliance offers a number of school-based prevention programs designed for various age groups. The Alliance’s goal is to empower and educate youth, to eventually create a culture that is intolerant of violence.

Prevention Educator Angie Alfonso, who has been working for the Spruce Run-Womancare Alliance and Womancare for about 17 years, said she wants people to be reassured that she and her colleagues are still working with schools to provide programming for the younger members of the community. “A new website has gone up this week and we would love people to visit that,” she said about www.sprucerun.net.

Alfonso said the Spruce Run-Womancare Alliance has prevention offerings for all grade levels, which can be designed to complement the curricula already in place. “In order for there to be a day where there is a society where domestic violence doesn’t exist we have to start as young as preschool,” she said. “It’s empowering young people and providing people with knowledge they may not have had.”

“We continue to bring Harmony Camp into the younger grade levels,” Alfonso said about a summer camp offering for elementary-age participants. She said during the school year “Hands Are Not For Hitting” is aimed at preschool through about grade 2 to raise awareness on the negative impact of using violence to solve conflicts. Participants trace their hands and then sign a pledge saying they will not hit, and after doing so receive hand stickers that can possibly start a conversation at home with family members.

An overlapping lesson on kindness is “for identifying feelings and learning how to cope with those feelings,” Alfonso said, with students also learning how kindness impacts the pupils and those around them. The youngsters think of ways they can be kind, such as holding the door open, and are encouraged to carry out these acts of kindness.

“With middle school we talk about communication, healthy friendships, conflict resolution and Internet safety,” Alfonso said about some of the topics for these ages. She said with the rise in social media programs students need to beware of privacy settings and potential online danger, but the programs also instruct “how technology can be used for positive things.”

Middle-schoolers learn about labeling and cliques and “how to be a good friend and how to have healthy relationships,” Alfonso said. Spruce Run-Womancare Alliance Advocacy Program Manager Cindy Freeman Cyr added that these lessons learned provide “the foundation for future intimate relationships.”

The high school programs are focused on dating violence and healthy relationships, such as defining the different types of abuse, learning what red flags of abuse are, how technology can be used to be abusive and how teens can help a friend or themselves — such as the resources available through the the Spruce Run-Womancare Alliance.

“I think kids are told not be angry,” Freeman Cyr said. “Everybody gets angry, it’s what you do with your anger that matters.”

The redesigned www.sprucerun.net “has a large section for teens,” Alfonso said. “They typically do not call a hotline, they get information through their friends or online.”

High schools students are given Tootsie pops with tags featuring the hotline number. “We hope they will never have to use this number,” she said, but the information is handy if needed for the teen or for a friend.

“Our organization goal right now is to be in every high school in Piscataquis and Penobscot County,” Alfonso said. “What we are really excited about is other organizations and groups are contacting us,” she about Key Clubs, Penobscot Job Corps, the Shaw House and others looking to get involved with the Spruce Run-Womancare Alliance. “Our work is just expanding in places we never dreamed.”

Freeman Cyr said both the University of Maine and Husson University have gotten involved with prevention efforts being incorporated into the classroom.

“I think what excites us most about the prevention work is we have seen an engagement in youth,” Alfonso said. “The fact that most of the students who come out want to make a difference is heartwarming.”

When visiting classrooms Alfonso said she will ask the students how many of them had heard of the Spruce Run-Womancare Alliance. While she does not ask any to elaborate, some of those raising their hands have taken part in past events such as the Race to End Domestic Abuse while others have had direct connections with agency services.

“There are young people who deal with this every day and for me that’s why this prevention work is so important,” Alfonso said. “My hope is if we do this long enough it will change our culture and change the world our children will grow up in.”

She said during a recent school visit in Guilford, part of a school district that had a domestic violence homicide and ensuing multiple month manhunt for the suspect over the summer, some great questioned were asked about how students can help their peers if they see something happening or hear about incidents of violence.

Freeman Cyr said the bystander response is another part of the Spruce Run-Womancare Alliance outreach, when to get involved and how to do so. “We give them the language to do that,” she said.

“I think the more you talk about it and are willing to have a conversation the better,” Alfonso said. “Sometimes the best thing you can do is listen. Sometimes we don’t have advice to give, but you can say ‘I don’t know what we can do but we can figure it out together.’”

Alfonso said a University of New Hampshire Carsey School of Public Policy survey of over 200 students at three New Hampshire high schools indicated more than nine in 10 students said that they had had at least one opportunity within the last year to intervene in situations of dating or sexual violence. On average, the study said the students averaged five opportunities to intervene but in 37 percent of cases the survey respondents said they chose not to step in.

“We are lucky to have great community partners, such as the schools that will open their doors,” she said. “We are fortunate to be in the communities we are in and have the reception we do.”

Freeman Cyr said the United Way is huge financial supporter of the Spruce Run-Womancare Alliance and the agency’s education programs for youth as well as the hotline and support group for adult members of the community.

“My desire is to increase our presence and have people know we are a resource for people of any age,” Alfonso said.

“The door’s really open,” Freeman Cyr said about ways the Spruce Run-Womancare Alliance can collaborate with schools and other community partners. She said one such partnership is the “Library Campaign” with school and town libraries, as the Alliance donates books for various ages which are featured in displays along with accompanying prevention information.

Freeman Cyr said reading “is a more entertaining way to look at the issue” and the reader can then think about the the content and issues raised in the novel. “Reading fiction is often a way of reaching someone who the standard presentation might not.”

For more information on the Spruce Run-Womancare Alliance, go to www.sprucerun.net or contact 564-8166.