Start Strong: Building Healthy Teen Relationships is finding promising pathways to stop dating violence and abuse before it starts. Targeting 11- to 14-year-olds, Start Strong rallies entire communities, including teens, parents, caregivers, educators and community leaders to re-engineer environments to support healthy relationships and ensure that violence and abuse are never tolerated. It underscores the critical link between our health and where and how the live, work, learn and play. Unfortunately, teen dating violence is one of the nations most serious public health problems. The Start Strong model combines and expands innovative strategies in education, policy change, community outreach and cutting-edge social marketing campaigns to empower teens to develop healthier relationships throughout their lives. As part of this four-year initiative, Start Strong is creating a national learning community to promote outstanding practices in prevention and advance the way our society addresses teen dating violence and abuse. Located in 11 cities around the country, Start Strong will work closely with Futures Without Violence (formerly Family Violence Prevention Fund) to create a menu of best program practices that can be tailored to local needs.
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Start Strong, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is tackling the issue of teen dating violence and abuse in 11 communities across the country. Targeting 11-to-14-year-olds, Start Strong is using innovative strategies to equip teens with the tools they need to have healthy relationships throughout their lives.
New York Times article sheds light on program aimed at educating middle schoolers on dating violence and healthy relationships.
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Start Strong: Building Healthy Teen Relationships (Start Strong) is one of the largest initiatives ever funded to target 11- to- 14-year-olds and rally entire communities to promote healthy relationships as the way to prevent teen dating violence and abuse. This national program brings together a wide variety of partners in 11 communities across the country to tackle this issue and empowers young people to build safe and healthy relationships and ensure violence and abuse are never tolerated.
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious public health problem that impacts more than one in three women and one in four men in the United States. Young people ages 16 to 24 are among the most vulnerable. IPV severely injures families, damages individual potential and affects the well-being of societies. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation therefore made an unprecedented four-year investment to prevent IPV before it starts by promoting healthy relationships among middle school students. By starting earlier, Start Strong uses innovative strategies in education, school policy change, community outreach and social marketing to support healthy relationships and stop the acceptance of violence and abuse.
Start Strong is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) in collaboration with Blue Shield of California Foundation (BSCF) and Futures Without Violence (formerly Family Violence Prevention Fund). RWJF and BSCF invested $18 million in 11 communities across the country to identify and evaluate the most promising pathways to stop teen dating violence and abuse before it starts. RWJF funded 10 sites around the country and BSCF funded one site in California. This four-year initiative began November 15, 2008 and will end on November 14, 2012.
Start Strong is building healthy teen relationships.
A survey of 1,430 7th-grade students reports teen dating violence behaviors and risk factors occurring among middle school students.
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Teen dating abuse is an urgent public health problem that can be prevented. Experiencing dating violence early on can lead to higher rates of physical and mental health problems later in life, increasing the likelihood of risky sexual behavior, substance abuse, and more - not to mention the immediate impact of serious injury or death."
March 29, 2012- The San Francisco Examiner reports on the RTI International study, which showed abusive relationships can begin as early as middle school.
Read MoreMarch 29, 2012- US News highlights a survey sponsored by the Blue Shield of California Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Futures Without Violence which found that physical abuse is a common facet of dating for America's adolescents.
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