Domestic Violence Education
Domestic violence is prevelant in our society. The Family Violence Prevention Fund* reported that:
- On average more than three women a day are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in the United States.
- Women experience two million injuries from intimate partner violence each year.
- Nearly one in four women in the United States reports experiencing violence by a current or former spouse or boyfriend at some point in her life.
- Women are much more likely than men to be victimized by a current or former intimate partner.
- There were 248,300 rapes/sexual assaults in the United States in 2007, more than 500 per day.
*http://endabuse.org/userfiles/file/Children_and_Families/DomesticViolence.pdf
Domestic Violence Education: A Journey of Knowledge, Healing, and Empowerment is a resource for students, parents, schools, colleges and universities, churches, community organizations, and the like to address this pervasive issue. This curriculum is an invaluable guide designed to assist in identifying the early signs of abuse so that individuals can obtain help before a tragedy occurs. The Domestic Violence Education: A Journey of Knowledge, Healing, and Empowerment curriculum addresses the complex issue of domestic violence through five comprehensive units:
I. What's Love? Understanding Domestic Violence
II. Children: The Silent Victims of Domestic Violence
III. Teen Dating Violence: Alone, Afraid, & Abused
IV. Reaching Out to Others: What Family and Friends Should Know About Domestic Violence
V. Survivors: Domestic Violence, the Law & Your Rights
Domestic Violence Education: A Journey of Knowledge, Healing, and Empowerment has been endorsed by Dana J. Hubbard, Ph.D., Department of Sociology, Cleveland State University: "Overall, this curriculum is based in the literature and incorporates appropriate teaching and learning strategies. In addition, the curriculum also incorporates effective teaching and learning strategies. I believe that this curriculum will be effective at achieving its goals and objectives. The curriculum is excellent."
We welcome a meeting with you to further discuss how this curriculum can be integrated into health classes and/or how we can educate your student body regarding the various types of abuse, the red flags in relationships, stalking, and understanding the tactics of control, etc.
Teen Dating Violence
Jennifer Crecente died the day after Valentine's Day, 2006. She didn't die from a childhood disease and wasn't killed in a car accident. She was murdered by a classmate. Somebody that she'd grown to know, trust and eventually date.
She was 17 when she met her boyfriend and 20 when she died at his hands. In between, Heather Norris tried several times to leave the relationship, which was fraught with control and abuse, before she was killed — stabbed, dismembered and discarded in trash bags.
Teen Dating Violence Continues to Escalate
According to The Cleveland Plain Dealer article, "Abusive Relations among Teens Fly under Radar," by Rachel Dissell, “Teen relationships are often discounted as 'puppy love' and not taken seriously by adults. Neither are the signs of abuse, which can quickly escalate, such as when [Cleveland] West SideHigh School senior, Johanna Orozco, was shot in the face... Police arrested her ex-boyfriend. " In addition, The New York Times reported that, “Texas recently adopted a law that requires school districts to define dating violence in school safety codes, after the 2003 stabbing death of Ortralla Mosley, 15, in a hallway of her Austin high school and the shooting death of Jennifer Ann Crecente, 18, two years ago. Rhode Island in 2007 adopted the Lindsay Ann Burke Act — prompted by the murder of a young woman by a former boyfriend — requiring school districts to teach students in grades 7 through 12 about dating abuse…New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene showed that dating violence had risen by more than 40 percent since 1999…” On February 18, 2009, Ohio State Legislature introduced House Bill 19 which requires each school district board of education to adopt a policy to address incidents of dating violence at school or school events, to provide staff training on dating violence, and to include dating violence education for grades 7 through 12 within the district’s health education curriculum.
It’s hard to believe that between 30 and 50 percent of dating relationships exhibit the same kinds of escalating violence as marital relationships; as a result, the signs of abuse are, too often, overlooked among teens. Young people experience abuse in their relationships at a higher rate than any other age group. In fact, the U.S. Department of Justice consistently finds that girls and women between the ages of 16 and 24 experience the highest rates of intimate partner violence.
