Funding will support violence prevention programming in San Luis Obispo County schools.
SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY — Lumina Alliance has received a $600,000 grant funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to expand parenting, healthy relationships, and sexual health education in local elementary, middle, and high schools over the next 5 years.
In collaboration with the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, Lumina Alliance will support parents, caregivers, and youth by providing them the tools necessary to prevent sexual and intimate partner violence before it starts through three innovative programs.
ReDefine Parenting aims to empower parents and caregivers with tools to engage pre-teens in tough conversations about their social and emotional health in order to prevent violence before it starts. Parent Champions facilitate workshops with peers from their children’s schools. This program has been successfully implemented at three San Luis Obispo elementary schools this spring, and will be implemented at three more in the fall. “It was such a cool experience coming to learn and realizing that everyone there had valuable input,” said participating parent, Melissa Edwards, “I left feeling empowered and excited to continue on my journey of raising emotionally intelligent and aware children”
Lumina Alliance will continue to offer The Fourth R: Healthy Relationships Plus Program and Comprehensive Sexual Health Education compliant with state standards. Both programs promote bystander empowerment and cover a range of topics such as: consent, boundaries, healthy and unhealthy relationships, how to help a friend, bystander intervention skills, and reproductive justice. LA is currently delivering these two programs at a total of five middle and high schools; this grant will allow us to meet requests for new programming.
“At Lumina Alliance, we are grateful for this funding and are proud to continue our efforts to work with our local schools to achieve a community free from sexual and intimate partner violence,” said Lumina Alliance CEO, Jennifer Adams.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, 1 in 4 women and nearly 1 in 10 men will experience sexual assault, physical violence or stalking in their lifetimes and for most, that violence begins during their teenage years. Promoting healthy, respectful and non-violent relationships makes a huge difference in protecting children from experiencing or perpetrating violence when they get older.
For more information about Lumina Alliance Prevention programs, contact education@luminaalliance.org
Together, we can help end relationship violence in San Luis Obispo County through communication, education and demonstration in everyday life.
ABOUT LUMINA ALLIANCE — Lumina Alliance is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization created by the merging of RISE and Stand Strong in July 2021. Their mission is to empower those impacted by sexual and intimate partner violence through innovative advocacy, healing, and prevention programs. Services include 24/7 crisis and information line, case management, restraining order assistance, legal assistance, accompaniment and advocacy, emergency shelters, transitional housing, individual and group therapy, and robust prevention education. For more information, please visit www.LuminaAlliance.org