Freshman at Central High School are entering week 4 of the new Healthy Relationships Program, an idea that came directly from an Iowa Safe and Supportive Youth Leadership Team meeting last Spring. Students felt that their peers didn't have enough information on how to conduct themselves in a dating relationship, especially incoming freshman. They shared stories of relationships that they'd witnessed which had become emotionally and even in rare cases physically abusive. With the help of Iowa State Extension Outreach, two students from St. Ambrose, the IS3 team and the willingness of Central's Freshman Academy to try something new, the Healthy Relationships Program finally came to fruition on Jan. 22! The program consists of weekly classroom lessons such as "Communication, It's More Than Just Words" and/or large group activities such as "Think Outside the Box", where students were asked to confront societal gender stereotypes commonly in the media.

In preparation for the program, four students Victoria Taylor, Rhiannan Eads, Alexandra Doner and Hannah Hansen, were trained along with St. Ambrose students in a two day Bystander Intervention model called Mentors in Violence prevention. They were then certified to train other Central students, which they have been doing slowly over the past months. Currently we have approximately 10 students actively involved in the Healthy Relationships portion of IS3. The IS3 Youth Leadership Team itself continues to grow with almost 20 students. IS3 is also co-sponsoring the school's anti-bully group, Stand For the Silent.

Central students made 200 paper beads on Saturday afternoon for the charity/water project. This bead making cause is so meaningful because the proceeds will go towards bringing clean water to the villages of Tanzania. Central TAG students will host more bead making events before March 31st.