Intervention and Prevention of Teen Dating Violence: Community and SchoolBased Approaches

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Intervention and Prevention of Teen Dating
Violence Community and School-Based Approaches

• David A. Wolfe, Ph.D., ABPP
• RBC Investments Chair in Childrens Mental Health
  and Developmental Psychopathology
• Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
• The University of Toronto

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Prevention and Health Promotion

• Adolescence offers an ideal opportunity for
  education and skills that promote healthy
  romantic relationships
• Encourage skill development as alternatives to
  violence such as problem solving, emotion
  regulation, mediation and conflict resolution.

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Adolescence As a Critical Period in Developing
Healthy Relationships
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Epidemiology of dating violence

• emerges during mid-adolescence (ages 13-15)
• Severe forms 10-20 of youth (boys as well as
  girls) report being hit, slapped, or forced to
  have sex by a dating partner
• girls reported even higher rates of perpetration
  of dating violence at this age (22 vs. 38 for
  boys and girls)

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Dating violence, Substance use, and unsafe sexual
practices

• alcohol use influences the practice of or
  involvement in a number of high-risk
  behaviors,most notably unsafe sexual activity,
  smoking, and drinking and driving
• girls who report dating aggression are five times
  more likely to use alcohol than girls in
  non-violent relationships, whereas boys are 2.5
  times as likely
• Teens who begin dating at a younger age also have
  increased risk of teen pregnancy, smoking,
  drinking, and delinquency, and a decline in
  academic grades

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Triad of problems, continued

• Teens who use alcohol and drugs are more likely
  to have sexual intercourse at an earlier age,
  have more sexual partners, and have greater risk
  of sexually transmitted diseases.
• Almost 1 in 5 teens (17) that has had sexual
  intercourse reported regretting sex that occurred
  while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
• Dating violence increases the odds 20-fold for
  alcohol and drug use.
• High risk alcohol users report more dating
  problems, fighting, having trouble with friends,
  and experiencing school trouble compared to
  low-risk youth.

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Developmental Pathways to Teen Dating Violence

• Pre-adolescence Challenges and Opportunities
• Learning to relate Peers and gender differences
• Speaking different languages Status vs.
  Connection

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Pathways, cont.

• Early- to mid-adolescence Common Dilemmas
• Teasing and bullying.
• Confuse pushing, hitting, threatening as signs of
  love and caring
• Lack of knowledge half of teens say they would
  not terminate a relationship following an
  abusive/violent act.
• Sex differences Signaling intimacy

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Culture and Family Messages

• The Cultural context Normative expectations

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The Family context

• Early models of relationships
• Life Lesson 1 Learning to Abuse Power
• Life Lesson 2 Learning To Fear Others -
  Expecting Rejection, Abandonment, and Harm
• Life Lesson 3 What's Love Got To Do With It?

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• Preventing Violence in Dating Relationships Among
  High-Risk Adolescents
• Source Wolfe, D. A., Wekerle, C., Scott, K.,
  Straatman, A., Grasley, C., Reitzel-Jaffe, D.
  (2003). Dating violence prevention with at-risk
  youth A controlled outcome evaluation. Journal
  of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 71,
  279-291.

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Youth Relationships Project

• Violence in close relationships
• To understand power and its role in
  relationship violence
• Education about woman abuse, violence, sexual
  assault, and date rape
• Breaking the cycle of violence
• To develop skills needed to build healthy
  relationships, and recognize and respond to abuse
  in their own relationships

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Youth Relationships Project, cont.

• The contexts of relationship violence
• To understand the societal influences and
  pressures that can lead to violence, and
  develop skills to respond to these influences.
• Making a difference
• To increase competency through community
  involvement and social action

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Sample Session (2)

• POWER IN RELATIONSHIPS EXPLOSIONS AND ASSERTIONS
• Objectives
• To recognize the roots of violence as the abuse
  of power and control and to begin to examine
  anger as one potential form of abuse of power.
• Exploring Social Power(a) Brainstorm "What is
  Power" (or what makes a person powerful).

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Session 2 (cont) Elements of power

• Power bases
• personal assets, resources, e.g., knowledge,
  skills that form the basis of one partner's
  control over another.
• Power processes - interactional techniques, e.g.,
  assertiveness, aggressiveness, persuasion,
  problem-solving that an individual uses in an
  attempt to gain control.
• Power outcomes - who makes the final decision,
  who wins the situation.

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Summary and Implications

• Youth with maltreatment backgrounds benefit from
  group-based intervention focused on healthy,
  non-violent relationships
• Child maltreatment in the general youth
  population is a public health concern
• Exposure to violent and/or abusive methods at
  home is a strong predictor of teen adjustment,
  especially trauma-based symptoms such as anger,
  depression, and anxiety
• Adolescence is an important window of opportunity
  for promoting healthy relationships and reducing
  harm

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The Fourth RBuilding Capacities for Positive
Youth Development and Non-Violent Relationships
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(No Transcript)
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Risk and Relationships

• Adolescent triad violence, sexual behaviour and
  substance use
• High comorbidity between high risk behaviours
• Rooted in teen relationships (peer group
  romantic relationships)

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Why adolescence?

• Cognitive changes
• Increased capacity for abstract thought
• Shift away from black and white thinking
• Social changes
• Shift from family to peer group
• Romantic relationships

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Role of harm reduction

• Focus on helping teens keep themselves safe in
  potentially dangerous situations
• Recognize that some of these behaviours are
  normative
• Criminalization has not been an effective way to
  reduce problems and can exacerbate problems

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Promoting Positive Youth Development

• Want to help teens go beyond not drinking, not
  being violent. etc.
• What do they WANT their relationships to look
  like, not merely what to avoid
• Build resilience for future stressful situations
• Universal intervention
• No stigma for being involved
• All teens will end up in difficult interpersonal
  situations

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Meaningful Collaboration

• Fourth R is a comprehensive, school-based
  curriculum implemented in 21 classroom sessions
  in Grade 9 Health classes
• Integrated school-based approach
• Partnership with school board at every step
• Program meets Ministry guidelines for curriculum
• Teachers involved in writing curriculum
• Youth as participants, not targets

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Intervention Components

• Multi-focused
• Personal Safety and Injury Prevention 
• Healthy Growth and Sexuality
• Substance Use and Abuse
• Multi-level
• Student and peers
• Teacher and School
• Parents
• Community

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Individual Components1. Skills based programming

• Information important starting point, but only
  one piece of the puzzle
• Need to know WHAT to do, but also HOW to do it
• Difference between being able to say what you
  would do in a situation and being able to do it

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Individual Components2. Interactive programming

• Lessons from skills acquisition research
• brainstorm solutions
• role of models
• practice
• practice in the face of resistance
• practice in different contexts
• facilitated discussion -- what worked, what
  didnt, what could we try differently

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Individual Components 3. Developmentally relevant

• like to debate -- interested in shades of gray
• sensitive to being patronized / receiving
  oversimplified messages
• identity formation, trying out roles
• Curriculum recognizes complexity of issues
• value clarification, recognizing comfort levels
• where do we get our ideas about relationships?
• doesnt purport to have all the answers

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Developmentally relevant, cont.

• Drawbacks of an adult control-based, gendered
  conceptualization of violence
• risk alienating adolescent boys
• does not fit their experience in the school
  setting
• teens do not identify with model (thats not
  me)
• Alternative
• recognize power as one possible element of
  violence
• look at many different types of relationships
• recognize female to male and female to female
  violence, not just male perpetrated
• look at normative experiences (e.g., rights and
  responsibilities of breaking up)

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Individual and Peer ComponentsYouth As Resources

• Respect complexity of issues
• Recognize teens as experts of the situations they
  have to handle
• Emphasize helping them figure out their values
  and boundaries and develop skills to protect
  those boundaries
• Peer involvement
• Youth Action Committees

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School and Teacher components

• Teacher awareness education and special training
• information for all school personnel on the
  fundamentals of the program
• Supplementary activities such as theatre
  presentations and guest panels for all grades

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Parent Components

• Provided with information about the program
  during Grade 9 orientation
• Written information about the program and about
  developmental changes during adolescence
• Suggested parenting strategies and community
  resources for parents with teens.
• Student-generated newsletters resulting from the
  curriculum units are sent home to parents.

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Community Components

• Increased links between community agencies and
  students.
• Activities are organized by Youth Action
  Committees, and may include guest speakers, field
  trips, an agency open house at the school to
  learn about community resources, and/or volunteer
  involvement.

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Further Information

• dawolfe_at_uwo.ca
• ccrooks_at_uwo.ca
• www.thefourthr.ca
• www.uwo.ca/violence