Youth who are victims of dating violence are more likely than other teens to use drugs, have eating disorders, engage in risky sexual behaviors, become teen parents, and contemplate or attempt suicide. And that is just during their teenage years. As adults, teen dating violence victims are more likely than others to be victims of domestic violence, a condition that leads to even more devastating effects on their health, their safety and their families.

For these reasons, the Violence Prevention Program is making dating violence a major focus of its research and programming efforts for the next few years. One of our first major projects within this focus in the development of the Peer Safe Dates Program, a curriculum developed for Connecticut Valley Girl Scouts and based on the acclaimed Safe Dates program. We plan to implement this curriculum with 25-30 high school-aged peer leaders and 250 middle school Girl Scout troops in the fall and winter of the 2002-2003 school year. Through a comprehensive evaluation of the curriculum, we hope to learn more about dating violence and how to prevent it in this population, as well as how to further improve our dating violence prevention program.

We hope this and other efforts will result in a clearer picture of the dating violence issue in Connecticut, more effective ways to promote healthy dating relationships among teens and a raised awareness of this important issue affecting our youth.

Michelle Beaulieu Cooke, MPH
Director, Violence Prevention Program

Sources:

Silverman, J.G., Raj, A., Mucci, L.A., and Hathaway, J.E. (2001). Dating Violence Against Adolescent Girls and Associated Substance Use, Unhealthy Weight Control, Sexual Risk Behavior, Pregnancy and Suicidality. Journal of the American Medical Association, 286, 572-579.

Kann, L., Kinchen, S.A., Williams, B.I., Ross, J.G., Lowry, R., Grunbaum, J.A., and Kolbe, L.J. (2000). Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance-United States, 1999. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 49(SS05), 1-96.