Love Shouldn’t Hurt (2/8/2022)

An honest conversation about the signs of teen dating violence, what to do, and where to go for help.

This session dives into the reality of what signs parents and guardians can look for, how to approach the subject, and what resources can you seek if your loved one is in trouble.

It talk about ways to open up the dialogue with often resistant teens and young adults, for an honest look at relationships, what defines healthy, and how to set boundaries with so much peer pressure.

If you are a parent or guardian, a Middle School or High School teacher or guidance counselor, a community leader, or a victim advocate, you won’t want to miss this!

Encourage open, honest, and thoughtful conversations, and listen without judgement. Talk openly with young teens about healthy relationships – not just the good parts, but what a healthy disagreement looks like too.

Allow them to articulate their values and expectations for healthy relationships. Encourage debate rather than telling them their ideas are “wrong.” This gives young people room to come to their own understanding.

Be sensitive and firm. Parenting a young teen is not easy—especially when it comes to helping them navigate their way through relationships, so be sure to be sensitive while being firm.

Be adaptive – much of what young people face today are different than what we experienced at that age.

Be willing to talk openly and respect differences of opinion, and know that some of the decisions you make will not be high on their popularity list.

Consistent behavior on your part as the adult goes a long way. Unexpected outbursts of frustration and/or anger is off-putting to anyone and does nothing to build confidence or trust.

Understand that adolescence is all about experimentation and often includes risk-taking – “normal teenage behavior” can appear anything-but-normal. Knowing what’s “normal” is critical to helping you better understand and guide young people. Taking risks and experimenting can be beneficial in some areas, so it’s our job as adults to help them identify what behaviors and actions are dangerous and harmful to themselves and others.

Pressure begins at an early age. Preteens and young teens face new and increasing pressures about sex, substance abuse and dating. Time and time again, young teens express their desire to have parents/role models take the time to listen to them and help them think through the situations they face – be that person!

Set clear expectations up front. Make sure young teens know how you feel about disrespect, use of abusive or inappropriate language, controlling behavior, or any forms of violence, and also be clear about your consequences for that type of behavior. If you talk about it before anything happens, it’s a conversation and not a reaction. It’s also about their behavior if and when you must hold them accountable.

Use TV episodes, movies, music lyrics, news, community events or the experiences of friends to have teachable moments and discuss healthy and unhealthy relationships.

Teach young people and model how to stand-up for friends when they observe unhealthy treatment of their peers.

If all you do is focus on what something “shouldn’t” look like, you won’t hold your audience for very long. Focus and teach what healthy relationships (friendships and romance) should look and feel like as well. Talk about healthy arguments and how to start a relationship with respectful boundaries.

Don’t just “pop in” when there’s an issue. Be an active participant in your young teen’s life. Explore ways to know more about your young teen’s friends and interests. Find activities you can do together, but also encourage healthy independence.

Be prepared to mess up. If you’ve done a good job at teaching that perfection is a myth and mistakes are a learning opportunity, the young person will be more apt to not hold it against you. Model the behavior you want to see.

Digitizing Abuse is an Urban Institute project studying the role of technology in teen dating abuse and harassment and in teen bullying. Knowing how many teens are affected and how they’ve been victimized can inform strategies to address this problem.

Click on the images below for a larger and readable version.

KEY FINDINGS

• 25 percent of dating teens report they’ve been digitally victimized by their partners. Only 9 percent seek help, and rarely from parents or teachers.
• 84 percent of digital abuse victims said they were also psychologically abused.
• 52 percent of digital abuse victims said they were also physically abused.
• 33 percent of digital abuse victims said they were also sexually coerced.
• One in six youth report being the victims of cyber bullying, which is abuse and harassment from someone other than a romantic partner.
• 90 percent of cyber bullying victims said they were also psychologically abused.
• Two-thirds to three-quarters of cyber bullying victims said they were also physically abused.
• Victims of cyber bullying were almost three times as likely to also experience digital dating abuse or harassment.
• LGBTQ youth reported much higher rates of digital dating abuse and cyber bullying than heterosexual youth.

Find out more at https://www.urban.org/features/teen-dating-abuse-digital-age

VictimsVoice Legally Admissible Tool

(CICK HERE to purchase a license of your own)
(CICK HERE to find a VictimsVoice Partner Member that can provide a free license)
(CICK HERE to donate a license to someone who may need one and can’t afford it)

VictimsVoice is a tool that fixes the legal documentation burdens victims face when recalling details for reporting acts of violence, abuse, and harassment. It is built to meet HIPAA, VAWA, VOCA, FVPSA, CCPA, and GDPR compliance, as well as the strict legal standards (Daubert Standard) of court admissibility, and provides the evidence needed for legal teams to successfully hold offenders accountable.

The leading national nonprofit organization that provides preventive dating and domestic violence education and outreach to teens and young adults.

For more information, visit them online at https://breakthecycle.org/

Resources For Young People To Prevent Unhealthy Relationships & Intimate Partner Violence. Contact Us 24/7 Via Text, Phone, Or Chat If You Have Questions About Your Relationship. Help for Friends & Family. Highly-Trained Advocates. Spanish Services.

Find out more at www.loveisrespect.org

It’s what you need to know about dating violence. Told by a family that experienced the worst.

KRISTIN MITCHELL

“Our daughter was the same as yours until she became a dating violence victim.”
– Bill Mitchell

Board of Advisors with Clery Center for Security On Campus
Board of Advisors with Cabrini University’s Jordan Center for Children of ​Trauma and Domestic Violence Education

Buy The Book & Listen to The Podcast: https://www.whendatinghurts.com/

When Domestic Violence Impacts Your Workplace

Domestic violence clearly impacts the motivation, productivity, and morale of employees, and as business owners and leaders, there are things you can, should, and must do to support your team. This 50-minute workshop covered the following:

>  What should employers think about how domestic violence (DV) affects their workplace?
>  What laws are implicated in DV scenarios?
>  How does HIPAA confidentiality factor in?
>  How do you address remote working employees in areas of threats and vulnerabilities?
>  How do you keep your workplace safe?

Ayesha Hamilton, an employment law attorney in NJ, NY, and PA covered the legal obligations, as well as safety, security, training, and the morale of your entire team.

The Empathetic Workplace

No workplace is immune to trauma, from claims of harassment or bias to large-scale impacts like the pandemic. When we respond well to those in trauma, we build trust that yields increased productivity, engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty.

Katharine Manning, author of The Empathetic Workplace and an attorney with more than 25 years’ experience on issues of trauma and victimization, provided an understanding of the prevalence of trauma and its effect on both the person in trauma and those interacting with them, then gives practical advice on how to support those in trauma in the workplace while protecting yourself from compassion fatigue and not running afoul of legal obligations.

This 50-minute workshop covered how to gain the expertise to respond with calm and confidence to traumas at work, whenever and wherever they arise

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The Employed Domestic Violence Victim

Roughly three-quarters of domestic violence victims are employed outside the home, but the abuse they experience doesn’t always stay in the house when they leave for work.

This program examines the impact of domestic violence on employee victims and their co-workers and the employment laws that support them, as well as the variety of ways an employer can help.

Participants will learn about the sabotage and “spillover” tactics of abusers, review provisions that protect a victim’s job and confidentiality, and discover an assortment of safety strategies that can save the lives of abused employees and their co-workers.

The Maryland Healthy Working Families Act requires employers with 15 or more employees to provide paid sick and safe leave for certain employees. It also requires that employers who employ 14 or fewer employees provide unpaid sick and safe leave for certain employees.
For more information, visit https://www.dllr.state.md.us/paidleave/paidleaveposter.shtml

The New Jersey Security and Financial Empowerment (“SAFE”) Act provides leave for employees who are victims of domestic violence or sexual assault or have a family member who is a victim. The amendment also expands the definition of “family member” under the SAFE Act to mirror the definition under the NJFLA.

For more information, visit https://www.nj.gov/labor/forms_pdfs/lwdhome/AD-289_9-13.pdf

Download your complimentary copy of The One Page You Need on Your Desk if You Work with People.
It’s packed with quick references to get the people you work with to the right resources quickly.
CLICK HERE

National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence

This 15-page word document can be used as a guide to building out your own workplace policy. Always consult your attorney when drafting formal policies to ensure it meets local, state, and federal guidelines, laws, and regulations. ACCESS HERE

Cornell Law School

Domestic Violence and the Workplace Model Policy and Toolkit
Editable versions of the Domestic Violence and the Workplace Policy and Toolkit, including a Model Policy (.doc) and Toolkit (.ppt). ACCESS HERE

Workplaces Respond to Domestic and Sexual Violence: A National Resource Center

Model Workplace Policy on Domestic Violence, Sexual Violence, and Stalking
Clear guidelines help employers appropriately respond to domestic violence, sexual violence, and stalking impacting the workplace, and promote a workplace culture of prevention and support. ACCESS HERE

THE EMPATHETIC WORKPLACE
5 Steps to a Compassionate, Calm, and Confident Response to Trauma on The Job
– Katharine Manning

THE STEP-BY-STEP LASER METHOD TO ADDRESS WORKPLACE TRAUMA
You shouldn’t just prepare for reports of trauma in the workplace. You should plan for it.

The Empathetic Workplace provides practical advice to help those who work with humans respond to issues that are uniquely human.

Find a bookseller and listen to an audio clip on the web at http://www.katharinemanning.com/my-book/

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STOP SIGNS
Recognizing, Avoiding, and Escaping Abusive Relationships
– Lynn Fairweather

Most abusers display warning signs that intelligent women miss—mostly because the majority of women have not been trained to recognize them. In this groundbreaking book, Lynn Fairweather—an expert in the field of intimate partner violence response and prevention—provides women with the information they need to recognize dangerous men before they become victims of abuse.

Find a bookseller online – https://presagetraining.com/about-the-book/

Love Shouldn’t Hurt (2/8/2022)

An honest conversation about the signs of teen dating violence, what to do, and where to go for help.

This session dives into the reality of what signs parents and guardians can look for, how to approach the subject, and what resources can you seek if your loved one is in trouble.

It talk about ways to open up the dialogue with often resistant teens and young adults, for an honest look at relationships, what defines healthy, and how to set boundaries with so much peer pressure.

If you are a parent or guardian, a Middle School or High School teacher or guidance counselor, a community leader, or a victim advocate, you won’t want to miss this!

NCADV’s Take A Stand For Healthy Relationships Curriculum

We hope you find their materials useful in your discussions with teens regarding healthy relationships and teen dating violence. Because this is a sensitive topic, we recommend that you take a few minutes to read the following critical resources. These are designed to help you so that you are as prepared as possible to provide safe assistance, support, and help students, whether they are experiencing abuse, witnessing abuse at home, or wanting to help a friend or family member.

• What is Teen Dating Violence?
• Facts About Teen Dating Violence
• Warning Signs of Teen Dating Violence
• Resources for Teens: Where to Get Help
• How to Help: When a Student is Being Abused
• Mandatory Reporting

If you know of a teen in immediate need of help, contact the teen dating violence hotline at: 1-866-331-9474

CLICK HERE TO GET STARTED

As an educator, you play a central role in creating an environment that is safe, supportive, engaging, and helpfully challenging for all students. A comprehensive—individual, small group, school-wide and school-community wide—effort to prevent bully-victim behavior and promote ally behavior is a foundation to achieving this goal. Check out our Educator page to access the best practices guide on Comprehensive Bully Prevention and Pro-Allyship Efforts.

Learn more at https://schoolclimate.org/resources-for-educators/

Download Educator Resources here: CLICK HERE for PDF DOWNLOAD

Digitizing Abuse is an Urban Institute project studying the role of technology in teen dating abuse and harassment and in teen bullying. Knowing how many teens are affected and how they’ve been victimized can inform strategies to address this problem.

Click on the images below for a larger and readable version.

KEY FINDINGS

• 25 percent of dating teens report they’ve been digitally victimized by their partners. Only 9 percent seek help, and rarely from parents or teachers.
• 84 percent of digital abuse victims said they were also psychologically abused.
• 52 percent of digital abuse victims said they were also physically abused.
• 33 percent of digital abuse victims said they were also sexually coerced.
• One in six youth report being the victims of cyber bullying, which is abuse and harassment from someone other than a romantic partner.
• 90 percent of cyber bullying victims said they were also psychologically abused.
• Two-thirds to three-quarters of cyber bullying victims said they were also physically abused.
• Victims of cyber bullying were almost three times as likely to also experience digital dating abuse or harassment.
• LGBTQ youth reported much higher rates of digital dating abuse and cyber bullying than heterosexual youth.

Find out more at https://www.urban.org/features/teen-dating-abuse-digital-age

Direct service through youth development programs is a cornerstone of Men Can Stop Rape’s work.

Drawing on our 24+ years of mobilizing boys and men to end violence against women through healthy masculinity, our trainings aim to help communities produce sustainable, measurable outcomes at each level of the environmental change model, emphasizing primary prevention, social and emotional learning, and healthy masculinity.

Using a train-the-trainer model, our approach has strengthened the skills of more than 12,000 trainers, maximized program and product delivery in more than 300 organizations, and conducted workshops for more than 50,000 people in urban, rural, suburban and frontier communities. Agencies, schools, organizations and institutions that we have trained include: K-12 professionals, university faculty, staff and students, youth-serving organizations, law enforcement and the US armed forces, professional sports leagues, college athletics, LGBTQ-serving organizations, state and local coalitions, fatherhood groups, juvenile justice organizations, correctional facilities, social workers, counselors, service agencies, and government agencies.

Find out more at https://mcsr.org/youth-development

Date Published: 2020
Length: 12 pages

Annotation
This guide from the Violence Against Women Research Consortium instructs service providers and educators in what they should know about teen dating abuse.

(CLICK HERE to DOWNLOAD PDF)

As per the NIJ: National Institute of Justice

The guide first defines “teen dating abuse” (TDA) as ”a pattern of controlling, abusive, or aggressive behavior towards a current or former dating partner, either in person or using social media or texting.”

Regarding its prevalence:

• • One in three teens experience some form of dating abuse.
  • Teens who experience online abusive harassment or threats are also likely to be experiencing offline abuse.
  • Only 33 percent of TDA victims tell someone about the dating abuse, with most of these telling a friend.
  • Eighty-one percent of parents either do not believe TDA is an issue or acknowledge they do not know whether it is.
  • Those most at risk for TDA victimization are girls, people of color, and LGBTQ teens;
    • however, each victim is distinctive in responding to and experiencing needs related to their victimization.

Still, this guide outlines some of the common signals that a person may be experiencing TDA. These include behavioral changes, such as:

• • inconsistent school attendance
  • new problem behaviors
  • request to change class or lunch hour
  • unexplained injuries.

Other major sections of the guide address:

• • how to be an adult ally for a teen experiencing abuse
  • “Some Do’s and Don’ts” in constructive interactions with TDA victims
  • helpful questions to ask a person who may be experiencing TDA
  • the development of a safety plan for victims of TDA.

Included in the PDF is 1 national resource and 7 resources specific to Arizona.

(CLICK HERE to DOWNLOAD PDF)

As per the OJJDP: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention:

This literature review will discuss research surrounding teen dating violence, including definitions of different types of dating violence, the scope of the problem, risk and protective factors related to perpetration and victimization, short- and long-term consequences, and outcome evidence of programs that seek to prevent or reduce the occurrence of teen dating violence.

This review focuses on dating violence that occurs between adolescents in middle and high school (primarily youth ages 12 to 18). The terms teens, youths, and adolescents are used interchangeably throughout the review.

VISIT THE LITERATURE

Sections include:

• Definitions
• Scope of the Problem
• Risk Factors for Teen Dating Violence
• Protective Factors Against Teen Dating Violence
• Consequences of Teen Dating Violence
• Outcome Evidence
• Conclusion
• References
• About This Literature Review

The leading national nonprofit organization that provides preventive dating and domestic violence education and outreach to teens and young adults.

For more information, visit them online at https://breakthecycle.org/

Resources For Young People To Prevent Unhealthy Relationships & Intimate Partner Violence. Contact Us 24/7 Via Text, Phone, Or Chat If You Have Questions About Your Relationship. Help for Friends & Family. Highly-Trained Advocates. Spanish Services.

Find out more at www.loveisrespect.org