Teen Dating Violence Prevention
As of December 28, 2009 Gov. T. Strickland signed House Bill 19 into law that each school district board of education must adopt a policy to prevent and address incidents of dating violence at school; provide staff training on dating violence prevention and include dating prevention education for 7th through 12th grade health classes. The bill requires the Ohio Board of Education to develop dating violence prevention policy for curricula.
Does your school's health, family life, or violence prevention curriculum address dating abuse? Given the fact that up to 38% of high school students report having been a victim of dating violence*, this is a critical issue to address in any comprehensive middle or high school violence prevention program. As the only research-based curriculum of its kind, Safe DATES helps young people recognize the difference between healthy, caring and supportive relationships, and controlling, manipulative, and abusive dating relationships. Safe DATES meets the curricula guidelines set forth by the State of Ohio. PVFF (Partnership for Violence Free Families) utilizes this curricula in their training.
Highly engaging and interactive, Safe DATES gets young people thinking about:
- how they want to be treated by a dating partner
- how they want to treat a girlfriend or boyfriend
- what abusive dating relationships look like
- why dating abuse happens - Its causes and consequences
- how to tell if they are in an abusive relationship
- what to do about feelings of anger and jealousy
- how to help a friend who might be in an abusive relationship
Through a grant from the Allen County Health Department and assistance from the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Task Force, the Partnership for Violence Free Families brought in a training for individuals wanting to bring this nationally recognized SAMHSA “Promising Practice” program, Safe DATES, to the youth they serve.
Program features
The ten-session Safe DATES curriculum, through Hazelden Publishing, which can be delivered in as few as four sessions, includes cost-saving reproducible student handouts. Highlights of the curriculum include a dating bingo game to help young people identify desirable traits in dating partners and a play on dating abuse that was written by high school students.
Other important features of Safe DATES include:
- a Scope and Sequence matrix and links to national academic standards
New Legislation UPDATE:
As of March 10, 2010 a new House Bill was signed into law mandating that the Juvenile Court can provide issuance of a civil protections order to a child who has had or has a dating relationship with the respondent if certain offense are alleged under the scope of domestic violence laws. These orders can then be entered into the systems for law enforcement to act and respond to in the same manner as those of adults, thereby protecting the victims.
