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Sandra Frush doesn't give her audience any way to wiggle out of her topic.
"You can be raped," she said, looking each freshman in the eye. "Probably by someone you know, by someone who has built a friendship with you.
"It can happen when you're lonely. It can happen when you're depressed about a death in the family. It can happen at any time.
"Any questions?" she asked.
The ninth-grade boys cleared their throats and engaged in some shuffling of feet, but no one commented.
Frush, Mental Health Association of Kosciusko County director, began offering sexual and physical abuse programs to area schools 12 years ago.
At the Warsaw Community High School, Frush, Darlene Redinger, the association's school program coordinator, and Heather Jagger, a volunteer and Kosciusko County jail officer, met with freshman boys and girls during their physical education classes.
Presentations on sexual abuse, physical abuse and violent relationships are provided by grants from the United Way and K21 Foundation and a gift from the Betty Morgan Foundation.
The association gives age-appropriate talks to all grades, beginning with preschoolers, about the forms abuse can take and how to report the incidents.
Frush, Redinger and a host of volunteers talk to high school freshmen boys and girls and show a video from the "Teen Files Flipped" series, "Date Rape/Abusive Relationships." In the video, the boy is selected to become a lawyer for a day and accompanies investigators while they gather evidence for a date rape case. In the end, the boy learns he is guilty of date rape, too.
In the video, a girl believes she is the winner, along with another teenager, of an all-expense paid prom night. The other girl is constantly telephoned by her boyfriend, tracked down at the salon and finally accosted in a parking lot. The first girl finally realizes she is in an abusive relationship, too.
Jagger described date rape drugs like Ecstacy, MDA, Psilocybin, Ketamine, Rohypnol and GHB (Gamma-hydroxybutyrate).
Self-defense is taught at the high school level with classes for the boys and the girls.
The martial arts instructor advises the girls to always let their parents know where they are and who they are with.
"Tell a boy up front you aren't having sex with him," he said.
The students are taught basic escape moves. The exercises are designed to help them run away, screaming all the while, rather than defeat an attacker.
At the elementary school level, the approach is to tell stories about sexual and physical abuse.
In third grade, the big "Kids On The Block" puppets present scenarios.
Long-tailed "mice" give advice to preschoolers and kindergarten students.
Phillip Peters is a Whitko ICE student who works for the Mental Health Association. He takes the puppetry and painted-on mouse nose and whiskers in stride.
"It is really great to work with this young man," Redinger said about Peters. "The elementary school boys connect with him and the freshman girls are very impressed that a boy is being up-front with them."
Occasionally a child will tell about his or her own abuse in the middle of or after a presentation.
Peters will never forget when a young boy recently said, "Whenever I get in trouble, Dad hangs me upside down by my feet and hits me with a board."
"Whenever we hear the words 'that happened to me,' we direct the child to the adult in charge," Redinger said. "Their teacher is always in the room."
The younger children are taught about good touches, like hugs, and bad touches.
"If anyone touches you where your bathing suit goes, go tell an adult," Redinger advises the children. Kindergartners come up with a list of adults they can trust and can tell, like mothers, fathers, teachers, neighbors, relatives and the school counselor. The youngsters practice yelling "No!"
The children are told abuse is never their fault and they need to keep telling an adult until someone believes them.
"Ninety-nine percent of the time, sexual or physical abuse is carried out by someone the kids know," Redinger said. "'Stranger danger' occurs 1 percent of the time and usually results in death. We're never going to stop predators. That's why these programs are so important."
For fourth- and fifth-grade boys, the Boy Scouts of America have produced a video called "It happened to Me," describing sexual abuse in young boys.
"The Necklace" is shown to older elementary school-aged girls. It's about a father's gifts given as blackmail for rape.
Victim advocate for Warsaw Becky Moreno recently visited with a high school girl after she discussed her situation after a presentation.
"My husband asked me if the student's admissions bother me. I told him no, because I can connect that child with the proper adult in their school and it is going to stop.
"I think, in the majority of cases, once the child comes forward to the property authority, abuse does stop," Redinger said.
In January, February and March, 101 presentations were given to 2,500 children.
For more information, call the Mental Health Association of Kosciusko County, 269-2102.
