Life-changing experiences from the WiseGuyz program

We sat down with Tristan Abbott from the Centre for Sexuality in Calgary who is the Program Implementation Specialist of the Movember-funded program WiseGuyz to learn more about what WiseGuyz is, the impact it’s having, and in what ways they’re expanding.

A health promotion program that explores the impact of gender norms

I have been with WiseGuyz since 2011 as a facilitator, coordinator, and now Implementation Specialist. WiseGuyz is an evidence-informed, gender-transformative program designed to create safer spaces for adolescent guys framed around life skills for health and wellbeing. The program offers an opportunity for these guys to explore how masculinity relates to their identity, their values, their mental, sexual, and relationship health, as well as their communication and media literacy skills. They learn non-violent communication and decision-making skills, have discussions about interpersonal and gender-based violence, as well as how to apply a critical lens to constraining influences and pressures they might be feeling from stereotypical masculine norms.

I often describe WiseGuyz as a journey. It’s one of self-discovery, of the youth understanding themselves better, cultivating healthier, more inclusive ways of being a guy in the world, and to understanding the positive role they can play in society.

Filling the gap in the conversation

When the program was piloted back in 2010 it was basically sex ed for boys. There weren’t many programs at the time that specifically targeted young men. At the same time, we were seeing issues with young guys around consent, sexual violence, and a lot of negative media messages around masculinity. And the program sought to fill the gap that existed. Over time, it’s grown to be more all-encompassing to discuss who these young men are as human beings and building tools and skills that really spill out into many aspects of their lives.

Our target audience is mid-adolescence, with 14-16 year old guys being the ideal age. There are so many really positive, interesting and important things happening in a young person’s life at that age. It’s exciting, because they’re starting to have an understanding of the role they play at school, with their peer groups, exploring relationships, and beginning to dig into what it means to be a guy. But they’ve also got influences from the media and peer pressure, for example, that they’re also trying to figure out and combat.

The WiseGuyz Journey

It takes time to critically reflect on the different ways in which masculinity influences not only men, but the impact on the people in their lives and the community around them. Due to the need for in-depth exploration, we’ve designed a longer program that’s 19 sessions in a youth justice setting and 20 sessions in a school setting. The length is essential, because a personal journey takes time!

The curriculum is designed to be exploratory through critical dialogue and discussion. We talk about values at the beginning, what their interests are, how those values relate, and how they show up in their lives. We teach them a tool called “Head, heart, body” which helps build an understanding of what their thoughts, ideas, experiences, feelings and emotions might be telling them in situations and how that might show up with their physical body. This period of time in a young person’s life carries many different stresses. So, it’s about unpacking that, in expected but sometimes unexpected ways. Because people want to talk, they want to share, they want to explore who they are – especially at that age.

Ultimately, our hope is that the young folks feel seen and heard. That their experiences are validated and that they come out of the program with a better sense of their own intersecting identities and the positive impact of that.

Scaling what works from schools to a justice setting

Over the last five years, we’ve been scaling our core, school-based program with organizations across Canada, including northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories. We’ve learned a ton through that process and the response has been really positive. Now, in this scaling project with Movember, we’re looking to expand what we’ve been working on for the last 5 years: bringing WiseGuyz to youth justice settings with an adapted curriculum. This project, Scaling What Works, aims to supercharge established and promising mental health initiatives looking to reach new communities, in this case, by scaling WiseGuyz to Canadian youth in criminal justice settings, encouraging the empowerment of justice-involved, vulnerable young men.

Since coming into and exploring this space, we’re seeing that there is a huge need for programming specific to what we’re doing. There are lots of other programs out there that support young people through their youth justice journey, but not like WiseGuyz.

We’ve worked alongside consultants to help us adapt the curriculum. The program seems to support and enhance the requirements of youth justice settings, such as preventative and diversion programming. In the scenario that the youth has had an interaction with the law, but they aren’t going to be charged, for example working with Youth Justice Committees, this offers an opportunity to take some programming that is going to offer new tools and skills that can help prevent future engagement with the law.

WiseGuyz is being offered amongst a suite of other targeted programs run through youth justice settings from secured and open custody, to attendance centres and working with probation officers. The energy and the response from not only the staff, community partners and the youth themselves has been amazing. It feels different for them. They get to talk and critically analyze communication, relationships, the media. The program also treats them differently than they might be used to in this setting. We’re talking to them about who they are as people, about how they understand themselves, and exploring their interaction with the justice system in a non-judgmental, personal way.

The impact of building healthy relationships

As an evidence-informed program, through an 8+ year partnership with the University of Calgary’s HOPELab, we’ve done different types of quantitative and qualitative evaluation, such as pre and post surveys, focus groups, and fun things like photovoice. From the young people, we’re hearing the program has improved communication, conflict resolution skills, and mental health. They report an increased knowledge about their own sexual health and sexuality, improved ability to engage in healthy relationships and bystander behaviours, decreased homophobic attitudes, and improved critical thinking around unhealthy forms of masculinity. On top of this, improved friendship quality, which is huge.

Teachers from our amazing school partners tell us that the program has had an impact on their schools, creating a safer culture. The guys are showing up in really positive ways within the program, but also in other classes and responding better in their relationships with administrators, teachers, and peers.

Finally, we have heard from many parents and guardians about the changes they’re seeing in their children, in how they’re starting to communicate and engage in their relationships in a really positive way.

At the end of the day, WiseGuyz is a healthy relationship program, a violence-prevention program. But healthy relationships start with the self. This feedback has really shown the work that’s being made on that level.

The WiseGuyz ripple effect

I’m on a bit of a mission to reframe how we talk about masculinity, or more accurately masculinities, and moving people’s language away from labelling it as ‘toxic,’ and instead focussing on what is health-harming. It's not about declaring masculinity as problematic, there’s nothing about being a guy that is inherently bad. But, it’s important to recognize that certain behaviours and norms of conventional masculinity can be harmful to guys themselves, as well as in their relationships with friends, partners, families, and online or IRL communities.

I want to create spaces that encourage a nuanced exploration of masculinities, allowing us to bring to the surface how harm shows up similarly and differently for each guy, depending on their unique situation and social and cultural context. That means holding space to talk about situations where aggression or social dominance might be crucial for immediate safety, but to acknowledge that, in the long term these traits, along with emotional restriction and others, can be bad for their health and wellbeing. Together we can dismantle the barriers and societal expectations that tell us how we're "supposed" to be as guys and, instead, focus on what is genuinely beneficial for us. We can take what serves us well – no need to toss the book out – and reimagine the rest! And for those of you like me, who are engaging with men and boys, a health-harming lens allows us many access points to get the conversation started.

If we can break that down with these youth, help them rewrite their narrative, eliminating barriers and cultivating a healthier, more authentic, inclusive, and constructive view of masculinity, remarkable things can happen. These young men can have more supportive, communicative, vulnerable, and equitable relationships with each other. The pro-social impact of that is that it has a ripple effect for folks of all identities around them in society at large.

I have had many life-changing experiences almost every year of doing this work (and more grey hair haha), and feel such gratitude for the population I get to work with. It’s such a gift. My hope is that the young men experience that too. That they get a taste of it through WiseGuyz.