what is prevention?
WISH’s mission is to create a community in which everyone has the opportunity to live violence free. Our prevention and education department works toward this mission by facilitating programs that engage individuals before they have been affected by violence to decrease the chances that they will ever experience violence. These programs are designed to help individuals build skills that decrease the likelihood that they engage in risk behaviors. Our ultimate goal is to create community-wide change in social norms that tolerate violence.
We offer a variety of programs that engage children, teens and adults.
You can request a free training for your school or agency or learn about upcoming community trainings by filling out the form linked below or contacting adrienne.g@wishak.org
upstream approach
Our prevention programming utilizes an upstream approach, which seeks to address the factors that contribute to violence, rather than responding to violence after it has happened. By addressing the social norms and factors that contribute to violence, we can prevent violence from ever happening.
To better understand this approach, consider this analogy:
Imagine standing on the banks of a river and seeing someone float down the river, calling for help. You jump in the river and rescue the person. As soon as they are on shore, another person floats by calling for help. Every time you rescue a person from the river, another person needs to be rescued. Eventually, you begin to wonder why people keep falling in the river and you make the decision to go upstream to see what is happening. Upstream, you discover a poorly made bridge that people struggle to cross, causing many to fall into the river.
Primary prevention is when we go upstream and repair the bridge. While saving the people in the river, and helping them move forward with their lives is important, we ultimately need to stop people from falling in the river.
