Prevention Programs, Adolescent Dating Violence

Benefits of Focusing on Prevention with Adolescents

There are several advantages to working with adolescents on prevention initiatives. Developmentally, they are very interested in intimacy and romantic relationships and as a result, can be highly engaged in programming that addresses these issues. There is also a window of opportunity to help them develop healthy relationship attitudes and skills at the beginning of their exploration of intimate relationships before negative patterns become overly reinforced. From a logistics point of view, there are opportunities to work with all adolescents in a universal prevention strategy through the school or other community settings. Finally, adolescent dating violence is an important predictor of intimate partner violence in adult relationships, but the documented effects of adolescent dating violence suggest that it is also an important target in its own right.

Effective Dating Violence Prevention Programs

Different prevention approaches focus on different goals. Primary prevention initiatives seek to engage all individuals whether or not they are particularly at risk for experiencing dating violence. Secondary prevention focuses on at-risk individuals, such as those who are already experiencing violence in their intimate relationships or who have a history of family violence. Effective dating violence prevention programs have been developed to address both of these levels of prevention.

Dating violence prevention programs may take a range of forms including one-time assemblies, classroom-based instruction, and community-based intervention groups. Although the nature of activities also varies, most include educational and behavioral components, often within a feminist framework. Two programs that are known to be effective include Safe Dates (a school-based primary prevention program) and the Youth Relationships Project (a community-based secondary prevention program). In contrast to many other initiatives, these programs provide sufficient duration to make significant behavioral and attitude changes. In addition, they both focus on developing skills necessary for healthy intimate relationships and not merely preventing unhealthy ones.

Safe Dates is primarily a school-based program based on the premise that changes in norms regarding partner violence and gender roles and improvement in prosocial skills lead to primary prevention of dating violence. At the secondary prevention level, there is a focus on changing beliefs about the need for help and increasing youths'awareness of available services. The stated goals of the program are to raise awareness of what constitutes healthy and abusive dating relationships, raise awareness of dating abuse and its causes and consequences, equip students with the skills and resources to help themselves or friends in abusive dating relationships, and equip students with the skills to develop healthy dating relationships. The skills component focuses on positive communication, anger management, and conflict resolution. Safe Dates is structured around nine 45-minute sessions in school, with additional community components. School strategies include curriculum, theater production, and a poster contest. Community components include services for adolescents in violent dating relationships and providing training to service providers. There are also materials available for parents. Teachers who implement the curriculum component receive an extensive 20 hours of training, and community service providers receive 3 hours.

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