The Fourth R
2024 Fourth R Award Recipients
By:
Susan Dale
Thursday, June 13, 2024
Cheryl Shinkaruk and Julia Forgrave, two exemplary leaders in education, have been presented with this year’s Ray Hughes Fourth R Champion awards.
Conferred annually, these awards recognize individuals and/or groups who steward implementation of a Fourth R program in their school or community to foster healthy youth relationships and reduce risk behaviours.
Cheryl Shinkaruk is the Manager: Programs & Projects with Edmonton Catholic Schools. Her passion is supporting and championing student mental health through healthy living and active learning within a Comprehensive School Health approach. Since 2015, Cheryl has been a Fourth R Master Trainer providing over thirty professional learning opportunities for teachers, social workers, and school resource officers. She has spearheaded the coordination of training and implementation of the Fourth R to support teachers' instruction of the Health and Life Skills Program of Studies in Junior High in Edmonton Catholic Schools.
Cheryl was instrumental in working with the Archbishop for approval for the Fourth R being accepted across Catholic schools in Alberta and the Northwest Territories. Cheryl strongly believes that a whole-school, universal prevention approach involving all students will better equip them with the skills they need to build healthy relationships and reduce behaviours that will negatively impact them.
Julia Forgrave, Executive Director and Social Worker at Second Stage in Saint John, New Brunswick has been nominated as an exemplary individual who has been instrumental in supporting the implementation of the Fourth R – Healthy Relationships Plus Program (HRPP) in her community! Julia has been an HRPP Master Trainer in New Brunswick since 2019.
Julia, has had a long standing connection with the Fourth R, and most notably, helped to facilitate the recognition of the Healthy Relationships Plus Program as a recommended resource to deliver the Grade 8 Personal Wellness Curriculum by the Ministry of Education in the Province of New Brunswick. Her endless work to continue to promote Fourth R Programming in New Brunswick is admired and appreciated!
The Fourth R is a program designed for educators and other frontline professionals working with youth and housed within the Centre for School Mental Health at Western University’s Faculty of Education. Fourth R initiatives use best-practice approaches to target forms of violence, including bullying, dating violence, peer violence and group violence, and provide opportunities to engage students in developing healthy relationships and decision-making skills.
Two Ray Hughes Fourth R Champion awards are presented each June, after a process that invites nominations for a standout teacher and individual or group. From the nominations, an adjudication committee comprising the four founders of the Fourth R – Claire Crooks, Ray Hughes, Peter Jaffe and David Wolfe – selects the year’s recipients based on nominee merit according to the award terms.
