Safe Environment

A Safe Environment Program

Listed below are some topics and synopses from Sister Kieran's past presentations. You will notice an overlapping in the contents, as each presentation was prepared according to the specific wishes of the hosting group.

LEARNING ABOUT L.I.F.E. / L.I.F.E. Plus  (for teachers and catechists)

Sister Kieran explains her L.I.F.E. Program, a safe environment program designed to enable parents to talk with their own children about both healthy and unhealthy relationships at each stage of the child’s relational development from early childhood through adolescence.  The L.I.F.E. Program is based on the distinction between four kinds of human relationships that spell the acronym L.I.F.E.: Love (family love, commitment), Infatuation (falling in love, sexual attraction), Friendship (peer relationships), and various forms of Exploitation, including both bullying and sexual abuse.  The session will also introduce L.I.F.E. Plus, an online expansion of the program which includes other concepts called for in the US Bishops 2008 document Catechetical Formation for Chaste Living.  The online program is available in both English and Spanish.

Click here for a fuller explanation of the L.I.F.E. Program.

LOVE THEM AND TEACH THEM TO LOVE (for parents)

Our most important responsibility as parents is to teach our children how to love -- love God, love others, love themselves – and to help them gradually to integrate the complex reality of sexual love into their developing lives.  This workshop introduces you, the parent, to Learning about L.I.F.E., a family-based program designed to open a valued line of communication between you and your children at each stage of their relational development.  Using age-appropriate, comfortable processes, the program will guide you and your child/ren in discussing both positive loving relationships and relationships that are negative and abusive.           

LOVE THEM AND TEACH THEM TO LOVE (for youth ministers and catechists)

What role do we, as youth ministers and catechists, play in helping teens to develop as loving persons?  How can we help them to integrate the complex reality of sexual love into their personal lives?  How do we guide them toward relationships that are loving and affirming and away from those that are destructive and abusive?  This workshop will draw on the profound concepts found in Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, and show how these can help guide teens to in their growth toward authentic love.

Sister Kieran will prepare a talk to fit your theme or conference.   To schedule a presentation, contact her at sawyerk@tymeout.org.