Cohort 2 selected the topic of healthy dating relationships. The students were drawn to the topic because they all knew someone who was in a verbally, emotionally or physically abusive relationship.

The purpose of the Redefine project was to promote healthy relationships among Tulsa teenagers. Through education and advocacy, the cohort worked to enhance the skills of their peers to socialize constructively and reduce the frequency of physical and emotional abuse.

After reviewing curricula from across the nation, the students realized that there was a lack of attention to promoting healthy behaviors in relationships. To fill this gap, they decided to create their own curriculum with the mentorship of Laurie Lenora, a wellness expert at Holland Hall. At the time, Laurie was in early stages of drafting her own curriculum on the topic, and the cohort was able to support this effort and provide a valuable teen perspective. By the end of the cohort’s second year, the full curriculum was complete and was presented to community and education leaders at a showcase event in April 2008. The students also created a website that provided resources to youth and launched an awareness campaign through local media.

In their third year, the cohort partnered with the University of Oklahoma - Tulsa to pilot their curriculum in Tulsa high schools and test its effectiveness. Emily Curzon (Lester), a graduate assistant from OU-Tulsa’s School of Social Work, was engaged to teach Redefine as part of the wellness curriculum for 9th graders.

In the cohort’s third year, the Redefine curriculum was taught in four Tulsa-area high schools, reaching approximately 160 students. The students also worked with OU-Tulsa to collect data on the effectiveness of the program via pre- and post tests delivered to students who participated in the course. The results were ultimately published by the OU- Tulsa team in a 2014 study in the School Social

Work Journal entitled “Teen Dating Violence: A Comparison of Self-Reported Measures.” While the data on the effectiveness of the program was largely inconclusive, the study was the first of its kind to develop and utilize a new evaluative tool, the Healthy Teen Relationships Inventory (HTRI), that measures teen perceptions of healthy dating relationships.

Emily Curzon reflects that the student’s project served as a significant contribution to the field of healthy teen dating relationships: “The student’s curriculum was unique. All of the existing programs were about domestic violence. There wasn’t anything with a healthy, positive framing.”