As part of our Year 9 and Year 10 Health programme we have included five sessions, which will be run by the ‘ACC Mates and Dates’ team. They will deliver their programme during our Health lessons for 1 period a week, from week 1 term 4 through to week 6 term 4. Classes will have a variety of presenters running each session and the classes health teacher will be present for most sessions. We are looking forward to their input into our Health programme and believe this will be very important content for our young students to engage with.

Below is a brief overview of the programme from Sheree Ellis (Mates and Dates Programme Leader).

The Mates & Dates programme teaches young people healthy relationship skills and behaviours, to help prevent dating violence. The programme content focuses on the social and emotional aspects of having relationships. It is relevant to all students, whether or not they are dating, because the skills taught can be used in all relationships from friendships to family/whanau. Mates & Dates teaches young people how to have relationships based on respect, negotiation and consent. It is not a sexual education programme. Mates & Dates is an ACC funded best practice, multi-year programme designed for all secondary school students across years 9 -13.

Mates & Dates uses a mix of interactive activities intended to build strength-based skills year on year and is taught by specialist facilitators. We want to teach young people how to:

* Identify unhealthy relationships

* Have healthy relationships based on respect, negotiation and consent

* Identify inappropriate behaviour

* Get help if they, or someone they know, are in an unhealthy relationship

* Safely intervene in situations that could lead to harm.

We want to give young people the skills and knowledge to prevent the harm caused by sexual violence and dating violence. Here is a link to a short clip about Mates and Dates: 

If you have any questions or concerns around this please contact your child’s Health and PE Teacher in the first instance and they will respond directly to you, or forward your response to the Mates and Dates Programme Leader if need be.