As a petition for more sex education and consent to be taught in schools garners almost 30,000 signatures nationwide, a new Pinjarra program is aiming to do just that.
Safe Woman, Safe Family's (SWSF) pilot program, Keeping Us Safe, will teach personal protection education and strategies to minimise susceptibility to gender-based violence, sexual assault, bullying and all forms of aggression.
Every female student at Pinjarra Senior High School is expected to get exposure to this program.
Safe Woman, Safe Family co-founder Tanya Langford said she hoped to make programs such as this a priority in every school.
"About 80 per cent of young people who have had some form of sexual assault will go on to have a mental health issue - it's trauma," she said.
"This program is early intervention and prevention, and it's also recognising these incidents of sexual assault in young people.
"Every school should be delivering this. Schools need to be giving this priority."
Safeteen, which Keeping Us Safe is based on, has proved successful in Canada with a study concluding students gave more assertive and less submissive responses to challenging situations after participating in the program.
"We are teaching students how to stand up for themselves and how to be a lot more assertive and set strong boundaries," Ms Langford said.
"It is pretty significant and important."
As part of the grant received from the WA Police Community Crime Prevention fund, SWSF is also able to hold workshops for women in the Peel region.
The workshops will teach personal safety strategies, risk assessment, de-escalation and self defense skills.
"When you look at the statistics, 80 per cent of sexual assaults are actually by someone the woman knows such as a family member or a peer at school," Ms Langford said.
"Also for woman who have already been through domestic violence they have a very high rate of being re-victimised.
"But through this program and teaching self defense, their risk of becoming hurt and getting in bad situations drops dramatically."
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All workshops will be by gold donation and will be held on Wednesdays from 1pm to 3pm at 14 Camp Road, Pinjarra.
To get involved call 9507 8534.
