JACKSON, Mo. – The Green Bear Project has launched a new high school prevention program for 9th through 12th graders in area high schools for the 2022-2023 school year.
The Green Bear Project was created in 2001 by Leasa Stone with a mission to educate the community about child abuse. Over the past 20 years, Green Bear has educated thousands of adults and kids about the dangers, warning signs, and prevention of child abuse through various programs in southeast Missouri.
In 2021, the program educated nearly 15,000 southeast Missouri children through presentations.
Prevention Education Coordinator and Green Bear Founder, knows the importance of abuse prevention education. Stone created the program in memory of Baby Ty – a two-year-old who was tragically killed by his biological parents in September 2000 after returning to them from foster care.
“This September will mark 22 years since he has passed, but I am happy to know that thousands of area children are being educated every year about abuse prevention and that our program may have stopped abuse from continuing.”
Prior to this year the program educated pre-kindergarten through 8th grade students, but due to demand from area school counselors and Missouri Revised Statutes Section 170.045 RSMo (which requires high schools to provide abuse prevention education to students), the high school program was created.
Already for the 2022-2023 school year, Green Bear Educators have 29 high schools in their service region signed up for presentations and the number is continuing to grow! All Green Bear presentations are free to schools and organizations in their nine-county service region. Southeast Missouri Network Against Sexual Violence (SEMO-NASV) coordinates and sponsors The Green Bear Project.
“We are just so pleased that area schools and families understand the importance of talking early and often about abuse prevention. This High School Program will continue that messaging and expand it to include age-appropriate topics like sexual harassment, consent, and safe dating practices,” says Kendra Eads, Executive Director of SEMO-NASV. The Green Bear Project and SEMONASV know that the key to preventing abuse is education. The agency is bringing in a national speaker, Private Investigator and social justice advocate, Melissa J. Straub, to talk to area parents more in depth about online safety.
Melissa’s presentation “A Parent’s Road Map to Protecting Their Children in the Digital World” will be FREE to parents and guardians on Tuesday, September 27, 2022, at 6:30 p.m. at the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center.