Youth-Centered Environmental Shift Program

In 2019, staff at OSPI created the Youth-Centered Environmental Shift Program (YES!). YES! is supported by Rape Prevention and Education Program funding from the Washington State Department of Health to advance community-level prevention of sexual violence. 

Washington schools can start using YES! today with the free YES! Program Toolkit, Schools can implement individual activities or layer them into a comprehensive program. For technical assistance, email Nikki Van Wagner at nikki.vanwagner@k12.wa.us.

YES! Goals

• Gather real input from students about what needs to change in their schools.
• Create school cultures where every student feels safe, supported, and welcome.
• Prevent violence before it happens—whether it is bullying, dating violence, sexual violence or any other form of harm.

YES! Strategies

School Support Teams

• Build a team of prevention champions—school staff and community partners who plan together, lead YES! activities, and deepen their prevention knowledge. 

School Climate and Environmental Shift

• Gather student input using hot spot mapping to understand where they feel safe and unsafe at school—then use that information to improve safety schoolwide.
• Implement the It's About Respect social norms campaign to promote healthy boundaries ad prevent bullying.

School Policies and Protocols

• Review how district policies work in practice by gathering student and staff feedback. 
• Revise and implement building-level protocols and plans that protect against sexual violence. 

YES! is grounded in the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Model (WCSS)—a framework that puts students at the center and rallies the entire school community around their wellbeing. When schools create positive social and emotional climates, students do better academically, experience less stress, and develop healthier relationships with themselves and others. 

YES! in Action

Between 2020 and 2024, OSPI Staff recruited three Washington Schools to implement the YES! program pilot, with assistance from an evaluation team at the University of Washington (UW). 

Research

As a part of the evaluation process, two subprojects were completed to understand some key perspectives to effectively partner with middle schools in sexual violence prevention.

• Recommendations From LGBTQ+ Youth: This qualitative study aimed to understand LGBTQ+ student perspectives in how middle and high school environments can better prevent and address SV.
• Perspectives of School District Leaders: The purpose of this study was to explore barriers to implementing and evaluating sexual violence prevention programs in schools.

Implementation Tools

YES! Sexual Violence Prevention Guidance for Schools

The YES! Program Toolkit is available for free on the Washington Open Education Resource Hub. 

Hot Spot Mapping App for Schools

(In beta-testing). Hot Spot Mapping is a data collection tool that identifies where on a school campus students feel safe or unsafe. This data is used to make changes to the physical school environment to make unsafe spaces (“hot spots”) safer. This new online tool will allow schools to collect feedback directly from their students to inform their actions to improve school safety. Email Nikki Van Wagner to learn more.