Community Outreach
YMCA’s Love Notes & Best Buy Teen Tech Center
Daiya Thompson (second from left) with Love Notes youth
YMCA’s Love Notes: A Collaborative Program Promoting Healthy Relationships
Lots of smiles, laughter and real talk.
Sharing their experiences through a podcast.
Laying down hip hop music and collaborating on songwriting and music production.
These are just a few elements of the innovative and successful YMCA of Greater Louisville’s Love Notes program. Teens experiencing deeper relationships for the first time have preconceived notions about what love is and may end up making poor decisions. The evidence-based Love Notes curriculum covers topics such as developing communications skills, learning about the dynamics of healthy and unhealthy relationships, and approaching love and relationships with clear intentions about what they want and need.
The Love Notes program is funded through a federal teen pregnancy prevention grant from the Office of Population Affairs. Research has shown that healthy relationships programs (HRP) have a positive impact on reducing teen pregnancy, risky behaviors, and sexually transmitted infections. Many individuals at the YMCA of Greater Louisville have worked hard to get Love Notes up and running smoothly, all the while planning for long term program success. Freddie Brown, the vice president of diversity, inclusion, and global perspective and district executive director, has been a strong advocate for the program. Kelley Luckett is senior director of community integrated health and the Love Notes program director who works tirelessly to realize the vision of the program. Dennis Enix, the director of development and mission advancement, has worked closely with Melissa Fry, Ph.D., director of the Applied Research and Education Center (AREC) at IU Southeast, to write the grant proposal and ensure that the program was adequately staffed and operating at its full potential. Holly Gavin, B.F.A. and B.A. ‘20 in both fine arts and psychology at IU Southeast, works full time at AREC on the federal grant providing project management.
Working in the Heart of West Louisville and Garnering National Attention
“The YMCA of Greater Louisville has a very talented, passionate group of people who really know what they are doing, and they believe in this program,” said Fry. “The YMCA staff and the community partners that we are working with have turned this into one of the most innovative and impactful community efforts I have ever had the privilege to be a part of. They are innovating in ways that are already getting national attention and we will be working to document, evaluate, and disseminate findings on the impacts of these innovations.”
In an innovative fashion, YMCA’s Love Notes program utilizes the Best Buy Teen Tech Center at the Republic Bank Foundation YMCA during school breaks when the program hosts Teen Vibe camps. The Best Buy Teen Tech Center is a place where teens can use technology to create films, digital art, video stories, podcasts, write and produce music tracks that express their creativity and explore the themes they have learned in Love Notes.
“In my opinion, the podcasts are especially innovative in how it empowers and engages youth voices,” said Gavin. “Young people open up about their life experiences and have these really organic conversations around issues that are really profound, serious and relevant to them.”
Transformational Change for Teens and Students Alike
Another innovation is the use of peer facilitation with Love Notes. Peer facilitators, after receiving extensive training, lead the 13-lesson program and establish trust and rapport with their fellow teens. Teens who have witnessed or experienced dating and/or domestic violence benefit immensely from peer instruction as they learn about creating and maintaining healthy, stable relationships.
Daiya, a Love Notes peer facilitator, went through the program while at Central High School in Louisville. She initially was skeptical about the program but the lesson on red flags in relationships resonated with her and motivated her to get more involved.
“Love Notes builds a safe community where everyone can share their experience,” said Daiya. “To see the growth out of my peers and to see that change that they are making within communication and finding healthy relationships to involve themselves – it’s just making a great impact overall.”
Teens aren’t the only ones that experience a transformational change. IU Southeast students who serve as program observers get to see how their skills and knowledge can be applied to positively impact the greater community.
“From our perspective at AREC, we have gotten to show and see for ourselves how our data tools and ability to think and see in systems can be deployed to facilitate and improve the work of talented and passionate people in our community and to help them create transformative change in the lives of young people,” said Fry. “We are learning so much from the experience. For the IU Southeast students, the site visit helped them see the bigger picture of the work they are doing and I think that too was transformative in its own way.”
Love Notes is funded through 2023 with plans to continue the curriculum with numerous community partners in the future. For more information on the program visit: Y Love Notes | YMCA of Greater Louisville (ymcalouisville.org)
If you would like to support the work being done at the IU Southeast Applied Research and Education Center, please visit IU Southeast Applied Research and Education Center Fund: Giving: My IU: Indiana University.