February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month
According to the Children’s Safety Network, teen dating violence is a pattern of controlling behavior exhibited by one teenager towards another in a dating relationship. This controlling behavior can manifest as physical abuse, sexual abuse, and / or emotional abuse, including threatening, ridiculing, stalking, and / or using technology to harass or intimidate.
The CDC’s High School Youth Risk Behavior Survey of 2021 reports that:
more than 10% of high-school girls and nearly 7% of high-school boys in the United States experience physical dating violence;
more than 15% of high-school girls and 4% of high-school boys in the United States experience sexual dating violence.
This month, we strive to bring awareness to teen dating violence prevention in the Northwest Corner through multiple community awareness-raising campaigns. First, Project SAGE is distributing three handouts throughout Region 1 and at local private schools that support not only TDVAM but also our Year of Digital Safety:
#AskB4UPost sticker - to raise awareness about the need for consent around sharing images on social media
Non-consensual Image Sharing brochure - to provide simple and practical information on what to do if your image has been shared without your consent
Surf Safer webcam cover - to prevent others from capturing images through a webcam without the user’s consent