It's My Space
It’s My Space is a Kentucky-specific adaptation of an evidence-based middle school primary prevention program that teaches students about personal boundaries.
The program includes four classroom sessions where students participate in engaging activities and discussion to deepen their understanding of personal boundaries.
Additionally, students complete a school hotspot mapping activity where they identify the spaces in the school where they feel safe, unsafe, or in-between. Prevention Educators use this information to work with school administrators to make changes to the school environment to keep students safe.
Students who attend It’s My Space trainings will be able to:
Define their own personal boundaries
Communicate their personal boundaries
Recognize signs of someone’s boundary being crossed
Understand the importance of respecting people’s boundaries
All components of the It’s My Space program connect back to three main boundary concepts:
- What is a boundary?
- When do boundaries happen?
- How to promote respect of boundaries?
The program addresses these three concepts at both the student level and the school level.
Student-level change initiated by It’s My Space focuses on changing students’ knowledge and behavior around boundaries and boundary violations. The program promotes the importance of respecting others' boundaries and supporting a friend if a boundary violation has already occurred.
School-level change initiated by It’s My Space seeks to create a school environment where boundary violations do not occur. Students map the spaces where they feel safe and where they feel unsafe in their own schools. Then, prevention educators work with the school to adopt targeted strategies that will make unsafe spaces in the school safer.