Dating Abuse: From Education to Prevention Discuss healthy friendships, boundaries, and body autono

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Dating Abuse: From Education to Prevention
Discuss healthy friendships, boundaries, and body autonomy before dating even begins to be a “blip on the radar”.
Angeli Rasbury
February 6, 2023



It was Kristen’s first relationship. For the better part of five years, when she was 15 to 20 years old, she was raped and strangled with a belt or hands by her boyfriend, a peer. The belt strangulation caused burst capillaries, which she covered with makeup. She reflected that she was so deep into the relationship, she didn’t think the violence and injuries were wrong or serious, and not result of anything she’d done or said. Kristen’s story is not unique. One in three teens will experience physical, sexual, or emotional abuse from someone they’re in a relationship with. Kristen, 27, now a scientist with a pharmaceutical company, didn’t know the warning signs, even though her school grades dropped when she was with her abuser. “It would be helpful to have a unit [in high school] on safe and healthy relationships,” she says, “as well as on abuse and how abuse manifests.”

Jamila Hinton is associate director of school-based services at New York City’s Day One (https://dayoneny.org/), a nonprofit organization providing direct education on dating abuse and healthy relationships to New York City’s youth, 24 years of age and younger. She says that early childhood education is an excellent way to ensure that youth get foundational skills around relationships. “Friendship behaviors and behaviors one has in a romantic relationship are pretty similar,” Hinton explains. They are both about “what it means to be a good friend and how we listen to each other.”
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While New York City’s Relationship Abuse Prevention Program (RAPP) provides dedicated licensed social workers in schools to support dating violence intervention, and many young people who are in unhealthy relationships benefit from connecting with their peers, mental health resources, and well-meaning teachers, Hinton says, “[W]hat’s needed is more.” A more-integrated approach is required for prevention. “It’s not just one workshop. It needs to be a series of workshops,” Hinton explains. How do I communicate with kindness with my partner? How do I treat myself and how does that show up in how I treat others? How do I have a healthy conflict? “These are really important questions,” she says, but Day One lacks the funding to provide discussion space for every young person in New York City.
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“You have to believe that a violence-free relationship is your birthright,” says Hinton, and “You have to witness it.” The more you see evidence of violence-free contact, the more you are likely to embody it yourself. She envisions space for different ways to learn how to be in healthy relationships through the art of play, art therapy, dance, and sports. She also believes that the work would be strengthened by continual community support. “Funding actual communities so that they can meet their basic needs would allow people to spend more time focused on how to be in relationship with each other,” she explains. “One of the things we noticed is that it is hard to take the time to talk about how do I treat my boyfriend, girlfriend, partner when I’m trying to figure out how to make ends meet at home. You can’t talk about love and kindness when you’re also talking about everybody having enough to eat.”

About the Author: Angeli Rasbury is a writer, educator, artist, and lawyer. Her articles have been published in Womensenews, Essence, American Legacy and other media outlets. She has written about cultural and social issues, particularly regarding Black girls and women.

https://womensenews.org/2023/02/dating-abuse-from-education-to-prevention/