About

Who We Are

Prepare offers comprehensive violence prevention education. 

We are part of a larger movement to create social change, prevent abuse, and support healing.

Our curriculum highlights:

• verbal boundary-setting strategies and resistance skills
• dynamic physical resistance instruction
• psychological preparedness
• adrenaline management

Our approach:

• research-validated methods and curriculum
• highly trained instructors
• experiential learning
• realistic scenarios
• best practices for trauma-informed and consent-based classrooms
• team teaching

Prepare is a founding chapter of IMPACT Violence Prevention, an affiliation of organizations that provide IMPACT curriculum.

“Instructors have a way of reading the room, meeting the students where they are, and ensuring student comfort and safety.”

Program Benefits

Our classes empower individuals to lead their lives fully, with the confidence that they have the tools to better manage what life brings their way.

Although the physical safety skills are often the highlight of our program, our classes cover more than just how to stay safe or how to intervene in a confrontation. Learning how to listen carefully, think clearly, problem-solve, and give direction is much more difficult while under high levels of stress. Participants grow more acclimated to functioning effectively while adrenalized.

Class participants tap into their own intelligence and life experience, and choose for themselves if, when, and how to respond.

For many, the embodiment of physical and emotional self-efficacy in the face of a simulated assault is a unique healing experience.

Our graduates report positive effects such as:

• greater confidence
• flexible problem-solving skills
• increased self-esteem
• assertive communication skills
• trauma recovery and future harm reduction
• the ability to be a helpful bystander and advocate for others
• improved ability to function while stressed
• calmer and more clearheaded thinking in emergencies

“This course was life-changing. I feel empowered.” Julia, graduate

OUR PROGRAMMING

At the Prepare Training Center, we offer public classes for self-defense and communication skills for all ages and genders, all levels of fitness, and all body types – including Introductory Workshops and multi-session programs.

Our school-based programs also include: health and life skills education, anti-bullying programs, and social and emotional learning fundamentals.

Corporations and agencies engage Prepare for safety training for staff who work on-site and in the field, as well as professional development workshops in leadership, communication skills, and team building. Workplace safety programs include issues such as managing angry or disoriented clients and navigating domestic and international travel.

Individuals, groups, and community-based organizations engage Prepare for private, custom classes to meet a variety of goals and needs.

EMPOWERMENT SELF-DEFENSE ADDRESSES FAMILIAR AND STRANGER SCENARIOS

Because the majority of sexual assaults and other violations are committed by people close to us, programs address situations in which a person we know is not respecting our boundaries, such as a dating partner, family member, or other familiar person.

EMPOWERMENT SELF-DEFENSE IS NON-VICTIM-BLAMING

Some people have concerns about the way self-defense is usually presented, with too much emphasis on physical skills, stranger danger, victim-blaming, and an approach that asks people to limit their lives to stay safe.

In our classes, we emphasize:

• responsibility for harm lies with the aggressor or person crossing boundaries
• self-defense and self-preservation strategies at every level are options, so there are no “shoulds”
• no blame or critique for how someone responded in the past or may respond in the future