Grant helps Lafayette House with prevention program

The Lafayette House of Joplin recently received a grant to support rural youth mental health.  

Susan Hickam of Lafayette House told Newstalk KZRG what the grant will do.:

“They gave us a grant a few years ago to start this prevention education program. And over the years we’ve been growing it within our schools and within our community. This is really an opportunity for us to have healthy conversations, age appropriate conversations beginning at the sixth grade level so we can start talking to our children about what is a healthy relationship.”

Hickam continued:  “We have two different curriculums. We have Safe Dates and Dating Matters. They’re both CDC approved programs. And a lot of times parents will kind of question. Well, my sixth grader isn’t dating, and this really isn’t about dating. This is about identifying healthy relationships.” 

“What does a healthy relationship look like in your family, among your friends? And then as you grow into wanting to date and all of that, how can we help you to identify what is a healthy relationship there as well? And when we can wrap around our children and we can have those healthy conversations earlier, we’re really setting them up for success in the future.” according to Hickam.  

Susan Hickam also told Newstalk KZRG:  “The other part of this is it allows us to give parents tools of how to have conversations with their kids. So we have several different programs within this, not only the curriculum, but we also have a simulation process that we can walk adults through and kids through to show everybody what kind of decisions that people are having to make.

In another part of the interview on the KZRG Morning Newswatch, Susan Hickam said:

“What is a healthy relationship between a brother and a sister? What is a healthy relationship with parents and, you know, and their children? We’re just talking about what is healthy and what is appropriate amongst any group of people. And so it is beyond intimate partner. If we start with identifying a healthy relationship within our family, then we can help a child decide as they grow into wanting a romantic relationship, what’s healthy for that. If they were already practicing that within their family, they can practice that within their romantic relationship.”

The full interview on podcast at Newstalk KZRG dot com.