This interactive workshop is part of Empowerment-Ed’s leading respectful relationship school program, tailored specifically for Year 7 students. It introduces the foundations of friendship, respect, and boundaries, with a strong emphasis on understanding the other person’s perspective; a key skill in building healthy relationships.

💬 What Students Will Explore
Led by Ben Russell, students will:

• Navigate the realities of technology and online interaction

• Learn how to respond to unwanted content and digital pressure

• Understand the difference between playful banter and harmful comments

• Explore respectful ways to connect with peers of all genders

🎉 Optional Social Activities
Schools can opt to include age-specific social experiences where students apply their learning in a safe, supported environment. These informal activities help reinforce respectful relationship skills through real-time interaction.

✅ Why It Matters
Students leave with practical tools to foster respectful relationships, not just in the classroom, but in their digital lives and social circles. This workshop lays the groundwork for emotional intelligence, empathy, and safe connection.

📱 More Than Likes and DMs: Navigating Relationships in a Social Media World

In a world of filters, followers, and false perfection, how do young people build authentic connections? This workshop, part of Empowerment-Ed’s leading respectful relationship school program, helps students unpack the pressures of social media and explore what it means to form healthy, respectful relationships in today’s digital age.

💡 What Students Will Explore
Led by Ben Russell, students will:

• Examine misguided gender norms

• Reflect on the pressure to be “perfect” online and offline

• Debunk myths around pornography and explore the realities of consent

• Learn how respectful relationships can thrive in modern, tech-driven contexts

🧠 Real Talk, Real Growth
This workshop is designed for both boys and girls, offering a safe space to critically reflect on identity, connection, and emotional wellbeing. It’s grounded in real-life scenarios and delivered in a way that’s engaging, age-appropriate, and culturally relevant.

🎉 Optional Social Activities
Schools can choose to include informal, age-specific social experiences where students apply their learning in a safe, supported environment, reinforcing respectful relationship skills through real-time interaction.

✅ Why It Matters
Students leave with a stronger understanding of how to foster respectful relationships: online, in person, and within themselves. It’s a vital step toward emotional intelligence, empathy, and safe connection.

🍑 Beyond Eggplants and Peaches: Understanding Boundaries, Consent, and Respectful Relationships

In a world where emojis often replace real conversation, how can young people truly understand boundaries, consent, and respectful relationships? This workshop, part of Empowerment-Ed’s leading respectful relationship school program, helps students unpack the impact of simplified communication and social media stereotypes on intimacy and connection.

💡 What Students Will Explore
Led by Ben Russell, students will:

• Examine how social media distorts expectations in intimate relationships

• Understand how objectification undermines authentic connection

• Explore the realities of consent—both online and in person

• Reflect on how technology can support or sabotage respectful relationships

🧠 Real Talk, Real Reflection
This session is designed for students navigating adolescence and early adulthood. It offers a safe space to critically reflect on identity, intimacy, and emotional wellbeing in a tech-driven world.

🎉 Optional Social Activities
Schools can choose to include informal, age-specific social experiences where students apply their learning in a safe, supported environment, reinforcing respectful relationship skills through real-time interaction.

✅ Why It Matters
Students leave with a deeper understanding of how to foster respectful relationships in digital and real-life contexts. It’s a vital step toward emotional intelligence, empathy, and safe connection.

Available upon request. We offer a bespoke program that is tailored to the prior learnings of each schools context, ensuring a relatable, engaging experience for students

In a world where boys are being told continuously what not to do, an alternative of what to strive for must be presented. Instead of being alienated, boys must be engaged on what it means to be an authentic man in modern society.

​In this workshop, Ben works through the damaging narrative traditional forms of masculinity have done to both men and women alike. Audiences are given guidance on how to offset the current social description of masculinity, where men are depicted as aggressive, violent, unemotional and non-nurturing. More importantly, participants are then offered a road map forward of what positive masculinity looks like, how everyone benefits from this approach and how to apply these new learnings to the gifts and talents each individual possesses. Participants will have the opportunity to workshop through a variety of age-appropriate scenarios to develop critical analysis skills to promote healthy masculinity in modern settings.

Parenting in the age of social media: what parents need to know and how they can support their child to become kind, compassionate, resilient individuals.

In this keynote, Ben will unpack with parents the 'age and stage' of where their child is in terms of social development and relationships. Parents will be highlighted key warning signs that they must be across, while being provided with user-friendly, proactive, high impact strategies to best support their child as they journey through adolescence. An opportunity for Q&A to provide real-time feedback to parents is also available.

Note: this keynote is recommended to complement a school run information evening.