Free program for children teaches safety
By Jill Meninger
Staff Reporter

A free six-week program for children of faculty, staff and students intended to teach safety and defensive skills is scheduled to begin in January.

The program, radKids, or Resisting Aggression Defensively, is for children ages 5 to 11 and will be offered through the Staff Assembly. The Fort Worth Crime Prevention Resource Center will help get the program started, said Hao Tran, a staff member who is setting up the program.

“The goal of the program is to empower children to be more self-confident and to recognize their fears and to transform them into mental strength,” Tran said.
She said the program first started as a service for employees but now will reach out to the community.

Shauna Fitzjarrell, the prevention coordinator at the CPRC, said she teaches the RAD class for adults at TCU and will teach the class for children when it starts. The class was taught last spring at W.M. Green Elementary and W.J. Turner Elementary schools and is also offered to community groups, elementary schools, churches and other social service agencies.

She said the class teaches safety skills for when they are home, out or while at school.

The children are also taught defense against abduction and personal safety, she said.

“What they are learning is how to keep themselves safe,” said Fitzjarrell, adding that children need to know what to do when they are alone.

“Ninety percent of self-defense is awareness and we are trying to build that in kids,” Fitzjarrell said.

Julie Graver, who is with residential housekeeping, said she approached Tran about the program because she had taken the adult class and wanted her three children to learn what she had learned.

She said she hopes her 9- and 11-year-old children will learn how to stay out of dangerous situations. She said she plans to enroll her 15-year-old daughter in the adult RAD class.

j.m.meninger@tcu.edu