About
The Consent Café is an activity-based consent education, communication, and sexualized violence prevention program for youth and young adults. Our program creates space for participants to learn and teach about everyday experiences of consent and relationships in schools and communities through relational and experiential ways with Consent Café peer mentors.
Our goal is to introduce and reinforce a rights-based consent literacy and sexualized violence prevention and response program early to ensure youth transitioning from high-school to post-secondary (TRU) or high school to the workforce are prepared.
How the Consent Café works
The Consent Café is designed to function within school schedules, and currently has four, 80 – minute lessons including:
1
Relationship building, emotional regulation, and resources
2
Consent and communication
3
Online consent and online safety
4
Relationships, violence prevention, and communication
What is the Consent Café curriculum:
Our curriculum aligns with the BC Government of Education’s Physical Health and Education core competencies and the BCCampus BcCampus’ (Baylis, et.al, 2020) eight key principles of sexualized violence prevention and response work.
Why the Consent Café works:
We meet participants where they are at, where they learn, and where they are navigating consent every day. Our content is current, community generated, and responsive to specific learner community needs. We are reflexive, and our curriculum is youth informed. We prioritize relationships; relational and trauma informed pedagogies are at the root of everything we do.
Who are the Consent Café Mentors:
Consent Café Mentors are the heart of the program because they help create a bridge between the curriculum and the real-life application of the content.They work alongside the youth and were present to establish and support respectful and courageous learning environments, model styles of participation and engagement, help participants co-regulate, support comprehension and application of material, listen and observe within their small groups, provide immediacy and responsiveness, and make Consent Cafés fun through games and scenario dialogues.
Our founders
The Consent Café was co-founded by Thompson Rivers University (TRU) faculty members Dr. Tanya Pawliuk and Ms. Chelsea Corsi.
Dr. Tanya Pawliuk (she/her/elle)
Weykt (hello)! My name is Tanya Pawliuk and I am an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work and Human Service at Thompson Rivers University (TRU), located on the traditional and unceded territory of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc people. My teaching and research specialties include child and youth care, trauma informed practice, consent communication, peer mentorship, relational pedagogies, and transformative learning. I have worked for over 25 years with children, youth, and families in the fields of adoption, permanency, and gender-based violence. I am the co-founder of the Consent Cafe.
Chelsea Corsi (she/her/elle)
Weytk (hello)! My name is Chelsea Corsi and since 1999 it has been my privilege to live, love, and work on the ancestral and stolen lands of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc people within Secwépemcúl’ecw. I honour the Elders, Knowledge Keepers, wise women, students, youth and young adults, friends, and loved ones from Secwépemcúl’ecw and surrounding territories who have been my teachers, mentors, and friends. I am a better person because of your care, love, openness, and acceptance.
In my faculty role as Senior Wellness Coordinator at Thompson Rivers University (TRU), I have had the pleasure of leading and collaborating on campus wellness initiatives at the local, provincial, national, and international level for over 22 years. Every day I show up on campus hoping to make a difference in the lives of others by prioritizing caring, trusting, and reciprocal learning relationships with students, colleagues, and community partners. I passionately mentor the TRU Student Wellness Ambassador Team (SWAT), Consent Café Mentors, and numerous other practicum students, gratefully learning just as much from them as they do from me. I have made it a priority to increase my learning and unlearning about how oppressive colonial structures create disparities in health and well-being, and work to embed the principles of decolonization, Indigenization, truth, reconciliation, equity, diversity, and inclusion into my practice and the work of the Wellness Centre team. I am proud to be a Registered Nurse and am committed to upholding the Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics outlined by the British Columbia College of Nurses and Midwives (BCCNM).
Consent Café Indigenous Learning Circles and Communities of Practice
The Consent Café was developed to be disruptive and effect social change. Through a reflexive process, we focused on developing something proactive and relational rather than reactive and instructional. An important aspect to our development has been de-centering “expertise”. This began with us as co-founders and an imperative to critically examine our own privilege and practice, recognizing that gender-based anti-violence programming often centres white heterosexual educator and survivor experiences to the exclusion of others including Indigenous, Black, newcomer immigrant/refugee, racialized, and 2SLGBTQIA+ survivors (MacDougall, Walia & Wise, 2022). Decentering also required a commitment to centering the formal and informal learning of all youth participants and adult mentors participating in the Consent Café.
Territorial Acknowledgement
Thompson Rivers University campuses are on the ancestral lands of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc (Kamloops campus) and the T’exelc (Williams Lake campus) within Secwepemcúl̓ecw, the traditional and unceded territory of the Secwépemc. The region TRU serves also extends into the territories of the St’át’imc, Nlaka’pamux, Nuxalk, Tŝilhqot’in, Dakelh, and Syilx peoples.
As we learn about consent, we must recognize that the Canada we know was built on Indigenous lands without consent. Manipulation and violence have been, and continue to be, used to control Indigenous peoples’ bodies and lands through colonialism.
Importantly, alongside every act of violence exists a parallel story of resistance to that violence. We recognize and honour Indigenous peoples historical and ongoing resistance to colonial violence.