Youth Outreach Program

One in five girls has experienced sexual or physical violence at the hands of a dating partner, according to the August 2001 Journal of the American Medical Association, which reported the data of the 1997 & 1999 Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Surveys.

The study indicated that these young women were also at risk of engaging in additional maladaptive behaviors like binge drinking, cocaine use, heavy smoking, and eating disorders, that pose serious threats to their well being.

The leading author of the study, Jay Silverman, states that prevention is crucial to the healthy development of girls. He emphasizes, "The finding of such a high prevalence of dating violence against adolescent girls throws a spotlight on the need for all of us to do more to prevent and intervene in this violence to reduce both the immediate risk of injury to women and the very seriousrisks to their health that may follow, to increase our efforts to educate young girls about these dangers and how they can get help, and to discourage attitudes among both youth and adults that lead to acceptance of violence in relationships."

HAWC's Youth Outreach Program is the only program on the North Shore to offer comprehensive dating violence prevention education and programming. (Read about the program from the students' perspective.)

The Youth Outreach program's core services include:

Youth Violence Prevention Education

• A school-based three-part dating violence prevention curriculum for middle and high school students
• A school-based, interactive, three-part bullying and teasing prevention curriculum for elementary through high school students
• One-day healthy vs. unhealthy relationship workshops
• One-day bullying and teasing workshops
• Peer leadership trainings
• Educational programs for boys
  Educational programs for girls
• Educational sessions for community summer programs

Group Work

• In-school empowerment groups for 6th - 12th grade girls
• After-school programs
• Summer programs

• Trainings for community agencies, adults, teachers, youth professionals, and parents on teen dating violence
• Trainings for adults, teachers, youth professionals, and parents on bullying and teasing
• Collaborative efforts with social service agencies on the North Shore

Violence Intervention

• Individual short term crisis counseling for teens in abusive relationships
• Technical assistance to schools in the development of teen dating violence policies and procedures