Supportive relationships are built on communication, respect, boundaries, and consent. This course provides the knowledge and practical strategies to help young people develop the relationship skills they need to build supportive connections, navigate conflict, communicate effectively, and make informed decisions throughout their lives.
Explore the qualities of supportive relationships across the lifespan—including friendships, family relationships, dating relationships, and other important connections—while examining the role of communication, boundaries, consent, and personal values. You’ll learn how to facilitate conversations that help young people recognize supportive and unsupportive behaviors, understand and practice consent, build personal agency, and respect the boundaries and autonomy of others. Through interactive learning, practical teaching strategies, self-assessments, and real-world classroom examples, you’ll strengthen your ability to create learning environments that are inclusive, affirming, and responsive to the diverse identities, cultures, values, and lived experiences of young people.
Designed in flexible 25–30 minute modules, this self-paced course provides practical tools you can immediately apply to foster respectful, evidence-informed, and age-appropriate conversations about relationships and consent.
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
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Describe the role of relationships as an essential part of human development and well-being.
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Identify the diversity of relationships that may be important throughout a person’s life, including friendships, family relationships, dating relationships, and other meaningful connections.
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Recognize supportive and unsupportive relationship behaviors.
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Describe communication strategies that foster supportive relationships.
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Explain what consent is, what it is not, and why it is essential in all relationships.
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Recognize the importance of communicating, recognizing, and respecting personal boundaries and consent.
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Identify relationship skills that support evaluating relationships, establishing boundaries, ending relationships respectfully, and responding to rejection in constructive ways.
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Explain how personal values, cultural influences, and community expectations can shape relationships and decision-making.
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Recognize strategies that help young people build personal agency, self-advocacy, and healthy decision-making skills.
