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  • EVIDENCE BASED | Girls Fight Back

    Evidence-based research over the last 30+ years, supports the efficacy of empowerment based self-defense education. OUR PROGRAMS ARE EFFECTIVE AND ENGAGING WE HAVE EMPOWERED over 1 MILLION PEOPLE SINCE 2001 DOWNLOAD GRAPHIC Self-Defense training has been shown to lower rates of sexual assault by up to 50%. Empowerment Based Self-Defense Efficacy Infographic GRAPHIC CREATED BY MONA MACDONALD "Self-defense training has many other positive eff ects on women’s lives— effects that themselves may reduce women’s risk of assault." - JOCELYN HOLLANDER

  • STUDENTS FIGHT BACK | Girls Fight Back

    Check out our gender inclusive self-defense and safety program for colleges, high schools, and universities! "More useful than any other self-defense class. I loved that it was more verbal and highly emphasized trying to deescalate the situation before having to fight. Everything is applicable and anyone can use it. I feel much safer and more knowledgeable!" - SOFIA, STUDENT, ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Students Fight Back is the healthy relationship, and empowerment-based violence prevention program for colleges and universities! #1 personal safety, BOOK US NOW! We empower students of all genders to manage their safety and live limitlessly! Students Fight Back was developed from the need we saw to expand on the original Girls Fight Back curriculum and bring a message of safer campuses and practical violence prevention skills to a gender-inclusive audience. Our program is for students of any gender, sexual orientation, age, race, ability level, or experience...you are welcome here! We need everyone to work together in order to create a world free from violence, abuse, assault, and harassment. Gender Inclusive & Title IX Compliant! GET YOUR FREE SUPER SELF-DEFENSE GUIDE “I was just able to participate in your Students Fight Back session and was so overwhelmed with joy and inspiration with your work. I was so inspired and I had tears in my eyes. Your language, inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community and disabled community, and respect for pronouns made me feel SO much joy. Thank you for all of your amazing work.” —HANNAH LARGE, STUDENT, CARTHAGE COLLEGE WATCH Our Trailer Students Fight Back is the #1 personal safety and self-defense program for colleges & high schools! Our interactive seminar is Title IX Compliant, and we’ve worked with campuses in almost every state with dozens of repeat clients! Our empowerment-based self-defense seminar strives to make risk recognition, preventing violence, and fighting back an approachable topic for everyone on college campuses and beyond. We believe that we can simultaneously work to prevent violence at its source and offer people the skills to manage their safety in the present. We don't want to avoid preparing for the possibility of violence by pretending it doesn't exist! We want students everywhere to have the freedom to live confidently and limitlessly! POSITIVE EFFECTS TOPICS WHY WE TEACH TESTIMONIALS Self-defense is about MORE than physical skills, which is why Students Fight Back is essential education for ALL students! WHAT We Teach The Students Fight Back interactive seminar is 75 minutes + Q&A and includes these key components: Trusting your intuition Situational awareness Identifying relationship red flags How to be an active bystander and a good ally Enthusiastic consent How to support a survivor Setting and respecting boundaries Verbal de-escalation skills The basics of physical self-defense in our #BadassBasics Plus how to sign up for a full-contact adrenaline & scenario based self-defense course near you! NASPA Award Winning Program! WHY We Teach Heading to college often means moving to a new city, state, or country. That can be intimidating and scary! It means leaving behind friends from high school and learning to make new ones. It means having an entirely new level of freedom and independence while trying to navigate your own boundaries and those of others. It means learning how to make decisions on your own and managing your safety, relationships, academic work, personal space, and time. At Students Fight Back, we teach skills that can help students manage all of these things from a place of confidence and empowerment. We'll talk about real issues and address practical ways to handle uncomfortable or threatening situations. We combine a fun and empowering attitude, a dynamic presentation, and the best safety and self-defense methods available. We aim to create a safe and compassionate space to learn approachable and simple violence prevention skills that students can use anywhere. Using evidence-based strategies, we are committed to teaching students how to be their own best protectors using both verbal and physical skills. We want students in our audience to learn that they are fully capable of managing their safety and protecting themselves while being allies to others. This program is designed to give them the tools they need to do so. Through this work, we know we can create stronger communities and safer environments for all students. We work with campuses to customize each program to include local and campus resources and reporting structures as needed in addition to the national resources we always include. Students Fight Back is our way of ensuring that the message of empowering people with safety options gets out to the largest audience possible. Together we can create a world free from violence and help everyone live safer lives…without limits! “Thank you, Nicole. Your presentation was just what we needed—expert information and very engaging presentation . It’s not easy to find great content and a great presentation in one package, but you delivered both.” - ANDREA GRINDELAND, PTSA EDUCATION CHAIR, MONTA VISTA HIGH SCHOOL Positive Effects From Our Training Learning Outcomes Include Improved confidence and self-esteem Reduced anxiety & hyper vigilance Greater general awareness Increased comfort interacting with new people Changed attitudes about sexual assault Increased problem solving skills Increased self-efficacy & autonomy Improved communication skills Skills and education students can use today and forever! PROGRAM EVALUATION BOOK US TODAY! to empower your campus community! “Finding an acceptable Title IX compliant program for our New Student Orientation has been one of the most difficult tasks of my career. Students Fight Back not only treats the topics with respect and perspective , but makes it near impossible to not be fully engaged. They bring relatable storytelling and practical intervention and self-defense techniques in a way that is memorable and useful. We have finally found the right program for Carthage.” —ADMINISTRATOR, CARTHAGE COLLEGE

  • AWARENESS MONTHS | Girls Fight Back

    Check out these great opportunities to bring one of our programs to your group! G ET YOUR FREE sassy SEL F-DEFENSE GUI DE! Mail Awareness Months Check out some great opportunities to bring one of my programs to your school. January Personal Self-Defense Awareness Month National Stalking Awareness Human Trafficking Awareness February Black History Month Relationship Wellness Month March National Women's History Month Spring Break April Sexual Assault Awareness & Prevention Month Alcohol Awareness Month May Missing and Murdered Indigenous People's (MMIP) Awareness Month Mental Health Awareness End of Year Training June Relationship Wellness Month July Student Safety Month Back to School August/September New Student Orientation National Campus Safety Awareness Month Realtor Safety Month National Self-Care Awareness Month October Domestic Violence Awareness Month National Crime Prevention Month November National Runner Safety Awareness Month Nov. 25 International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women Not sure which program is for you? Let's discuss your needs! MORE PROGRAMS More Programs Available Below: CONTACT ME!

  • ABOUT | Girls Fight Back

    Learn more about Girls Fight Back, our mission, our owner, our founder, and why we are dedicated to empowering people everywhere to be their own best protector! G ET YOUR FREE sassy SEL F-DEFENSE GUI DE! Mail You Are Worth Fighting For! PHOTO BY Deborah Hart Girls Fight Back was born in direct response to the June 2001 murder of a dynamic, athletic, and loved college student named Shannon McNamara. After Shannon’s death, her friend and sorority sister, Erin Weed, realized the need for practical and empowering options for young women to learn violence prevention and self-defense. Inspired by the way Shannon fought her attacker, Erin immersed herself in training with the best violence prevention experts and self-defense trainers in the world and, from this, developed the GFB seminar. By combining core values, a fun and empowering attitude, and the best safety and self-defense methods available, Girls Fight Back was born. Girls Fight Back is now under the ownership of Nicole Snell , an award-winning international speaker, survivor advocate and self-defense expert who is dedicated to carrying on the mission of empowering women around the world. Nicole was a Senior National Speaker for the GFB for 6 years, and took ownership of Girls Fight Back and all associated programs in 2020. She has developed additional gender inclusive programming as well as programming for outdoor safety, travel safety, and empowerment. Nicole has presented over 450 of these keynotes, seminars, and workshops to groups around the world, including at over 100 US military installations. Girls Fight Back and our associated programs have won numerous awards including most recently, the 2023 NASPA Peer Initiatives award for Students Fight Back at Miami University, OH. OUR Core VALUES WE BELIEVE THAT EVERY INDIVIDUAL IS THEIR OWN BEST PROTECTOR Strong Resilient Spirited Unified STRONG We believe that every individual is their best protector. Our strength is not necessarily made up of mere physical muscle but is built upon making a conscious choice to reclaim our sense of security in the world. We strive to empower individuals to be in control of their lives, to set boundaries that allow them to feel safe, to be wary of anyone who discounts their NO, and to learn how to live a safer life through their actions and help other people around them to do the same. SPIRITED Belief in oneself is essential. We believe that scare tactics do exactly as their name suggests—scare people. Instead, we strive to eliminate the taboo status of topics like violence prevention, self-defense, and personal security. Making these topics approachable and encouraging everyone to tell their stories will begin to change the pattern of violence. RESILIENT Though the statistics are shocking, we are here to say that we will not conform to violence. Our world and most of our individual lives have been wrongfully altered by violence. We believe in recovery on individual, societal, and world levels. Our message is presented without judgment to how anyone handled or felt about a past violent situation. These are very personal issues, and there is no one right way to react or feel, but we can share the tools that empower people to fight back. UNIFIED Though each individual is their own best protector, we also believe that we are here on earth to look out for one another. Protecting yourself is a great first step; the next step is to educate and empower others. By working together, we can spread the word about personal safety and self-defense while simultaneously working to eliminate violence. We want to re-enforce the truth that while most sexual assaults are committed by men, most men are not rapists. Though Girls Fight Back is not the answer to solving the problems of all violence that exists . . . we ARE one key part of the solution, and we stand together with everyone who strives to combat violence in our world. WE HAVE EMPOWERED over 1 MILLION PEOPLE SINCE 2001 "GFB is truly sensational and inspirational. I love that she didn’t make me fearful of attackers or of being attacked. Instead, it made me aware of my surroundings, and her techniques made me feel safer." - SUZANNE SMITH, TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY GFB Professional Snapshot 500+ Speaking Engagements Around the World 100+ Military Installations Trained 350+ Hours of Full Force Self-Defense Training 1,000,000+ People Trained 14 Countries Worked In Self-defense is so much more than physical skills. OUR PROGRAMS ARE EFFECTIVE AND ENGAGING Peer Reviewed and Evidence-Based! THE SEXUAL ASSAULT REPORT FAMILY AND INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE QUARTERLY RESEARCH BUSINESS CERTIFICATIONS ALLIES & PARTNERS “This was an eye opening, and a fun way of learning about some hard subjects!” -STUDENT, CENTRALIA COLLEGE THE facts ABOUT VIOLENCE Violence affects every community on earth. 1 in 5 young women will experience sexual assault in college. 1 in 6 men have experienced sexual assault. 91% of child abuse is perpetrated by someone known to the child. Every 68 seconds, someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted. 56% of Native American and Alaska Native women have experienced sexual violence. 44% of lesbian and 61% of bisexual women experience rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner. 26% of gay and 37% of bisexual men experience sexual assault. 1 in 2 transgender people will be the victim of sexual assault in their lifetime. These numbers are higher for BIPOC communities. More than 1 in 3 women have experienced rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner. Approximately 86% of survivors know their assailants. Statistics sourced from : National Intima te Partner Violence Survey 2016 National Violence Against Women Survey 2000 Uniform Crime Report 2018 National Crime Victimization Survey 2003 Centers for Disease Control National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey 2010 Research over the last 40 years consistently shows that Empowerment-Based Self-Defense education (like Girls Fight Back programs) reduces women’s risk of experiencing violence, including completed and attempted sexual assaults by up to 50%! *Studies are limited regarding stats for men, non-binary, trans, and gender non-conforming communities. LEARN MORE GFB Founder & Inspiration Erin Weed FOUNDER Erin founded GFB in 2001 at the age of 23 in response to the murder of Shannon, who was her close friend and sorority sister. Erin has won many awards for her work in women’s empowerment and social entrepreneurship. She was a columnist for CosmoGirl and is the author of Girls Fight Back! The College Girl’s Guide to Protecting Herself (now available in its 3rd edition). She is the creator of the GFB seminar seen by over a million women, and also the GFB Speaker Academy. Erin sold GFB to Gina Polesetsky in 2013, and Gina sold it to Nicole in 2020. Shannon McNamara INSPIRATION Shannon was murdered on June 12, 2001, just a few days shy of her 22nd birthday. While the world lost an incredible human being that day, heaven gained one hell of an angel. Shannon’s story has inspired over one million women to become their own best defenders, and to live the badass life each of us was intended. And for that, we are so grateful. Friends of GFB Gina Polesetsky SISTER - FRIEND OF GFB Gina Polesetsky, M.A., LMFT, opened Kirkland Productions, Inc., a college entertainment/speakers agency, in 2000. In 2007, she opened her second company, KP Comedy, and in 2013, she purchased her third company, Girls Fight Back. She sold Girls Fight Back to Nicole Snell in 2020. Gina is currently a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California, Nevada, and Idaho. Bree Swartz SISTE R - FRIEND OF GFB Bree is a graduate of Purdue University, where she studied Mass Communication and Theatre, was an ambassador for the College of Liberal Arts, and a Co-Captain for the Purdue Golduster Dance Team. “Nicole is such an engaging and passionate teacher, and the skills and strategies she teaches have really helped me feel more confident not only while I’m traveling as a woman on my own, but also doing the things I want to do in life in general, like hiking solo, and just walking home at night.” -STUDENT, CENTRALIA COLLEGE Business Certifications Woman Owned Small Business (WOSB) SAM Registered NACP Credentialed Victim Advocate LA County Vendor CA Small Business Certification LSBE Certified by LA County Our Allies & Partners IMPACT Personal Safety Girl Scouts San Diego Interactive Advocacy Strand Squared She Dreams of Alpine Hush No More

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