Plants won’t grow if we don’t plant seeds.

This past week I got my first round of seeds planted into starter trays in early preparation for my garden. Bell peppers, celery, onions and parsley seeds are now sitting in or on damp peat moss with warming mats underneath the trays to keep the temperature up for germination.

It’s pretty amazing to handle these very tiny seeds. They are small and seemingly lifeless, but a little soil, a little moisture, and a little time turns these seeds into an abundant harvest.

Prevention training is a lot like starting plants from seeds.

One tiny bell pepper seed can grow into a plant with 8-10 peppers. While it can vary, a pepper can produce 4500 seeds per ounce!

One tiny seed can produce 8-10 peppers, and depending on the size, they will weigh between 3-8 ounces. Multiply that by 4500 seeds per ounce and one tiny seed is hitting it out of the park when it comes to creating a lasting impact.

Prevention training is the same. One might look at a 3-hour prevention training and think that it isn’t very significant. Like our small seeds that could be dismissed as barely worthwhile. What impact can one tiny seed truly produce?

Well, according to the math, it’s a pretty enormous impact!

One small prevention training has the power to make an equally enormous impact. We know that a person who is trained to prevent, recognize, and react appropriately to child sexual abuse will produce an incredible amount of change over their lifetime.

Adults who have taken the Stewards of Children® prevention training have proven that they are more likely to intervene to protect a child. Trained adults are more likely to create policies that protect children. Adults who have been trained are more likely to report suspicions, helping children to access the support services that they need.

Adults are like seeds and prevention training is like the growing medium and moisture.

While the seeds that are in packages have the potential to produce fruit and vegetables, they won’t fulfill that possibility if they are not planted.

Adults who are untrained have the potential to protect children, but studies have shown us that without prevention training, most won’t take the steps needed to safeguard children.

34% of children are sexually abused by age 18. This is what happens without prevention training.

Fortunately, this isn’t the first season that we’ve started seeds for the garden. And it isn’t the first year that we’ve been training adults to protect children.

Our upcoming prevention training, being delivered in partnership with Women’s Place Resource Centre, is FULL!

After just a few days of promoting our event, being hosted live on Zoom on April 10, 2025 from 6-9pm (Atlantic), the training was full.

You can still register for the waitlist, which will give you a chance to attend if any of our registered participants aren’t able to make it.

For outdoor gardens like mine, we really have to start our seeds within a specific window of time in order to maximize our summer and fall harvest.

With prevention training, we are not limited in this way. You don’t have to have young children, or any children for that matter, in order to be part of the movement to protect children.

Anytime is the right time to get started.

We will be announcing another training opportunity in the next few months, and we are open to partnering with community groups and organizations that want to help fill our society with safe adults who will take action to protect children.

A garden can feed a family, and a village can raise a child.

It’s a good thing we’ve gotten started on both projects!