Our instructor leads children together with their parents/caregivers in practicing age-appropriate People Safety skills together. Concepts are introduced through stories, games, and role-plays, then adults and children are coached in practicing on their own. Age ranges can be 4-8 or 6-12. Sessions can be after school, weekend, or evening.

This workshop gives teens focused practice in using boundary-setting, conflict resolution, self-protection, and self-defense skills to prevent and stop most attacks, bullying, and harassment. Opportunity for full-force practice of self-defense skills with kick pads. We encourage parents and caregivers to attend the last half hour of our Teenpower Workshops to observe their teens demonstrating the skills they learned!

This workshop gives adults the opportunity to practice protecting themselves from confrontations and from assaults in realistic scenarios. Kick pads provide an opportunity for safe, effective practice of self-defense techniques.

We work with participants and their supporters to identify their strengths and then to work with those strengths to stay safe. Thousands of students of all cognitive and physical abilities have found our services to be relevant, interesting, and well-suited for their own ways of moving, thinking, perceiving, and communicating. Our workshops offer a safe and secure environment for “learning by doing” through role-play and positive examples. We focus on what people have the power to do, not on what they can’t do, and we have fun while developing powerful and practical skills.

Proven Bullying, Abuse, and Violence Prevention Education
Preschools — Elementary, Middle, and High Schools — Colleges

Amy Tiemann, Ph.D has more than two decades of experience as an educator and mentor, working with kids of all ages as well as adults.  As the founder of SPARK Seminars, she wrote her own curriculum to teach parents the information and skills they need to become their children’s most powerful safety advocates.  When she wanted to extend outreach to kids themselves, she trained as a Kidpower® instructor, and brought the program to North Carolina in 2006. An award-winning author and teacher, Amy is a sought-after speaker and commentator. She is a frequent guest expert on parenting websites, national radio tours, magazines from Redbook to Glamour, and TV including ABC News, the CBS Early Show, and NBC’s Today Show. Amy Tiemann received her PhD in Neurosciences from Stanford University in 1996, and she continues to apply her extensive research expertise to all her work. Her combination of perspectives and roles as a scientist, educator, author and parent gives her a unique ability to make an impact on individuals, families, and cultural standards and to create positive social change. Dr. Tiemann has advised schools on safety issues and she served on the statewide North Carolina Council for Women, the Title IX Task Force that recommended policy changes for the University of North Carolina, as well an Orange County-wide coalition to end sexual abuse.

In addition to teaching personal safety through Kidpower® North Carolina, Amy is collaborating with Kidpower® Founder and Executive Director Irene van der Zande on an independent research project and forthcoming book, Doing Right by Our Kids: Protecting Child Safety at All Levels of Society. This project looks at organizational change and best practices in addition to steps that individual people and families can take to stay safe.  Learn more about this work and new resources it is generating at the website DoingRightByOurKids.com.

Raccoon puppet helps teach Trash Can Power to throw away mean words rather than take them into our heart.

Maryjane (MJ) Hayes has been working with Kidpower since 2001 when she began volunteering with the Colorado Kidpower Center. Later that year, she was invited to train as an instructor and got certified in 2002. In Colorado, MJ helped teach over 40,000 kids and adults including those with special needs. In 2012, her family relocated to North Carolina and joined that Center and is currently the Center Director in North Carolina. MJ is part of Kidpower International as a Senior Program Leader and trainer. She also travels to locations in the United States where there is not a local center to provide Kidpower training and services. Kidpower North Carolina offers programs for kids, teens, adults, seniors and those with special needs. These programs have taught thousands of children, parents and teachers in public and private workshops.

I wish I would have learned these skills when I was young. Finding Kidpower gave me hope that I could do something to make this world a better place by teaching everyone I can to keep themselves emotionally, mentally and physically safe. I am honored to have worked with so many families and their exceptional children in Colorado and North Carolina. One memorable moment came from a student in one of our Special Needs Transition program in a school district in Colorado Springs. She came up to me after our class and said, “I am so glad you taught me today, now I won’t get tricked anymore!“

~ MJ Hayes, Kidpower North Carolina Center Director

Jared Hayes also started as a volunteer for Kidpower® of Colorado in 2003 and began training as a padded instructor later that year and completed the certification in February of 2004. He has been trained to wear the padded suit and teach the Kidpower® physical self-defense skills. He is an integral part of the Kidpower® family and has helped train over 40,000 kids, teens and adults in Colorado, California and North Carolina. Jared believes strongly in the Kidpower® mission and does this work because he believes these skills will teach kids how to keep themselves safe in all areas of their life.

One of the best Kidpower memories comes from being a parent of two amazing Kidpower kids. In June of 2015 both of my kids attended the Weekend Family Workshop in Colorado Springs. One of the best parts of the program is the last hour of class they let all the parents and family in and the kids get to show their family all the skills they have learned in a safe and empowering environment. Between watching my own kids using the skills and reflecting back on the hundreds of kids I have personally taught at that same workshop, I am so proud to be a part of the program that cares so much and has helped so many kids stay safe.

Jodi Province is a licensed professional counselor with a focus on working with children who have experienced trauma. As a professional therapist since 2006, she attended a conference and learned about the successes of Kidpower with a strong impression and desire to join the Kidpower safety family. Jodi strives to promote safety for children as well as all ages. Jodi is a member of the Wilkes counties Safe Spot child advocacy center as a multidisciplinary team member. This effort has proven great as Jodi advocates for more prevention in the communities she serves. These communities include Wilkes, Surry, Alexander, Iredell, and Ashe counties.

Kenneth Province is a licensed professional counselor with a focus on adult and adolescent substance abuse patients, as well as, working with adolescents and children with disruptive behaviors. I am also a distance credentialed counselor. He attended a conference and learned about Kidpower and decided he wanted to join the North Carolina team and work to bring safety and prevention program to those in the communities he serves. These communities include Wilkes, Surry, Alexander, Iredell, and Ashe counties.

Linda Coplin is the Outreach & Prevention Coordinator with Davie Domestic Violence Services & Rape Crisis Center A lifetime of working with kids has come full circle for me as a Certified Kidpower Instructor. In the early days of my career teaching a small group of kids weekly Bible stories, I had no idea such a small beginning would eventually expand to teaching safety skills to hundreds of kids in our community! My greatest challenge teaching safety skills to kids of all ages is to create lessons that are fun, interactive and empowering. While searching the internet for ideas, I found Kidpower. As I read the articles and watched the videos, I was determined to know more. I signed up for a 3-day training in October, 2015 and then invested in the Core Training Program in January, 2017. After returning to the classroom, I was amazed how the kids responded to my new training techniques, but more importantly, how confident they seemed by the end of the week. I am convinced we can improve the effectiveness of our prevention program by teaching Kidpower skills.

Susan Lombardo has a master’s degree (M.S.) in Rehabilitation Counseling and certification to teach special education. She has helped adolescents with disabilities and their families and adults with disabilities for over 30 years as a counselor, educator, career coach, and job developer. Ms. Lombardo was introduced to Kidpower in 2016 when she observed MJ Hayes teach personal safety strategies to her students with disabilities. Ms. Lombardo was immediately impressed with the students’ enthusiastic response to the material and eagerness to engage in the practice. At that moment Ms. Lombardo decided she wanted to also teach Kidpower because it truly is empowering and essential to self-determined behavior.

Icela Trujillo is the Outreach & Education Director for Family Crisis Council in Rowan County and joined Kidpower North Carolina as an Instructor in 2018. She works with teens in middle schools and high schools on how to stay safe with safety skills learned from Kidpower.

Icela recalls,

The training that I have received from Kidpower has brought memories of my childhood. I was very lucky because a friend of my father tried to abducted me from school, she tried to pick me up from school and I know my Mother would never approve for her to pick me up. I ran to the office and asked for my Mother to come and get me and she did. I still think of that day and wonder what would have had happened if I had left with her. It is important for adults to give children skills they can use every day and what to do in case of an emergency. Sometimes we are just trying to survive day to day that we do not think about learning safety skill to be more alert in dangerous situations. I believe that we can all improve by taking the extra step to learn and to teach our children how to live violence-free and save lives.