IMPACT Safety: An Overview
IMPACT Safety, is a nonprofit organization
established in 1993.
Our mission: Building
safety from the inside out. We teach people of all ages
and abilities the critical emotional and physical skills
necessary to reduce risk, prevent violence, make safe choices,
and live and work with greater confidence.
IMPACT Safety Today
IMPACT Safety teaches practical skills
to enhance personal safety and confidence for adults, youth,
individuals with special needs, organizations and corporations
in Central Ohio and around the state. Women, teens, children,
and men can learn these effective strategies that prevent
violence. Organizations can help their employees enhance
their sense of safety and confidence in the face of risk
through safety awareness courses and workshops.
IMPACT Safety teaches the following life
• Deterring potential assailants
• Reading nonverbal communication
• Protecting personal boundaries
• De-escalation tactics
• Emotional Control
• Physical skills if necessary
• To communicate effectively in confrontation.
• To say “no” clearly.
• To sharpen instincts.
• To recognize the warnings signs of danger.
• To use emotions, including fear, to keep safe.
• To utilize “muscle memory”
What Makes IMPACT Different?
IMPACT Safety is a nationally recognized,
not-for-profit organization based on the tenets of personal
safety. IMPACT Safety employs a differentiated strategy
of building individuals’ physical safety in conjunction
with individuals’ emotional safety. IMPACT programs
are unique in their methodology.
To this end, IMPACT has evolved on a
different plane than has its perceived “competition,”
which are primarily programs that focus on techniques of
self defense. Most of the other programs (with which IMPACT
is frequently categorized) take a reactive approach.
IMPACT is proactive. IMPACT sees traditional
self-defense as an option of last resort. While it is vital
for individuals to make appropriate choices in threatening
situations, it is equally if not more important for individuals
to learn how to avoid and/or recognize a potentially threatening
situation before it unfolds. Hence the age-old saying: “An
ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure.”
IMPACT views this approach as incomplete.
Let’s face it: when one is assaulted, the damage is
not just physical—it is emotional and psychological.
The body works as a whole unit—physical, emotional
and psychological. Preparing one part of the self (the physical)
without effectively preparing the other parts (emotional
and psychological) can become, with all good intentions
set aside, a recipe for disaster. This is why IMPACT focuses
on “state-dependent” learning. This allows participants
to emotionally experience what it is like to be confronted
or assaulted. This is accomplished by re-creating realistic
scenarios that elicit fear, anger, frustration or any other
emotion that would occur in an actual confrontation or assault.
By teaching individuals to experience
this anxiety, and fear, they become more effectively trained
in how they can respond in a potentially threatening situation.
After all, most of us have no idea how we would respond
until confronted with such a situation head-on, which we
hope never happens. This is just one example of the IMPACT
The core outcome of all IMPACT programs,
regardless of population served, age of participants, or
length of program duration is that participants leave with
an increased sense of both physical and emotional personal
boundaries. Individuals benefit from a deepened understanding
of these boundaries and from the choices available to them
should their boundaries be crossed.