Prevention
Prevention efforts are essential to keeping teens from experiencing teen dating violence (TDV) and the longterm impacts it can have. Below you will find guidance for TDV prevention on micro, mezzo, and macro levels in schools to help you provide education and raise awareness about TDV and the impacts it can have.
Multilevel Prevention
Micro:
One-on-One
Counseling
Mezzo:
Targeted Small
Groups
Macro:
School Community Workshops
You can find the resources mentioned above in the resource toolkit. Additionally, there are many great organizations leading the work of preventing teen dating violence (TDV) such as One Love and Love is Respect. These organizations provide information on the impact of TDV, guidance for working with teens to prevent TDV, and resources to help you do this work. The resource toolkit provides more information on each of these organizations and more. There are also links to the love languages quiz and the attachment styles quiz to help youth understand themselves better, which can lead to healthier boundaries, communication, and self care in relationships. Click below to access workshop curriculum, targeted resources, and more in the resource toolkit.
To open our hearts more fully
to love's power and grace
we must dare to acknowledge
how little we know of love
in both theory and practice
~bell hooks
All About Love
Using Resources for Prevention
A self care plan can be a useful tool in micro level (one-on-one) prevention work with teens. Whether they are in a relationship or not, identifying ways of practicing self care and being intentional about creating a plan to do so can help them prioritize their wellbeing in and out of a relationship.
The idea of love languages is becoming increasingly popular. Using this quiz to identify one's love languages can help teens get to know themselves better and understand their own needs and wants in a relationship. Similar quizzes such as the apology language quiz and the attachment style quiz (all linked in the resource toolkit) are great tools to help teens get to know themselves better, and a small group setting (mezzo level) is a great space for rich processing and discussions of the results of these quizzes.
Creating a workshop, especially for macro level prevention can be a daunting task. Thankfully, One Love has created a resource for preparing a presentation on a small or large scale and walks you through the steps to do so. Use this resource to help you create a workshop to present on a mezzo level (small group) or macro level (larger school community).
The resources mentioned above and many more can be found in the resource toolkit, linked below
Prevention of teen dating violence is a hefty task, but one that deserves to be prioritized to keep our youth from experiencing the negative impacts of experiencing violence at such a young age. Using workshop curriculum and targeted resources at multiple levels (micro, mezzo, and macro) can ensure that teens are exposed to this information and understand what a healthy relationship should and shouldn't look like. It is important that we don't wait until teens have already experienced violence to teach them about healthy relationship habits. Now that you understand how to engage in teen dating violence prevention efforts, click below to learn more about teen dating violence interventions.