Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month Teen Dating Violence Prevention and Awareness Month is a national effort to raise awareness about abuse in teen and 20-something relationships and promote programs that prevent it during the month of February. Love is Respect Get information, counseling and support for dating violence and dating questions and concerns 24/7 thru [...]

Dating Violence: answer these questions honestly! About 3 out of 4 dating relationships of high school students in Nevada County are healthy ones. Yours should be, too! Are you ever frightened of your partner’s temper? Does he/she get jealous when you hang out with other friends or your family? Have you stopped hanging out with [...]

Talk to your friend and be nonjudgmental when discussing the abuse. Listen to your friend and believe him/her. Let your friend know that violence under any circumstance is unacceptable. Express your understanding, care, concern and support. Point out your friend’s strengths. He or she may not see his or her own abilities and gifts due [...]

When a girl says “no,” she really means “yes.” A lot of guys think a girl just says no because she’s supposed to – and that she can’t say that she wants sex even when she does. And that “no” is just the beginning of negotiating for a “yes”. But a guy doesn’t have the [...]

Sexual assault is an extremely traumatic experience, leaving survivors overwhelmed with a mixture of emotional, psychological and physical distress. Rape Trauma Syndrome is the term for the pattern of symptoms that a survivor goes through as they progress through their healing and recovery. (It is actually a specific form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, experienced [...]

I have the right to be treated with dignity and respect. I have a right to follow my own values and standards I have the right to say no and not feel guilty. I have the right to experience and express my feelings. I have the right to feel safe. I have the right to [...]

Think of this as a wheel that goes around, and around, and around. The more that you go around, the more you get used to it. It gets harder and harder to “jump off” the longer that you are in it. The “Honeymoon” Phase: How the relationship begins – Phase One This is the person [...]

Believe it or not, most rapes – 85 percent* – are committed by someone the victim knows. These rapes are just as damaging to the victim as a rape by a stranger, and can be even MORE damaging. *U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice, Centers for Disease Control and [...]

What is Dating Violence? Teen dating violence is a pattern of controlling behavior that someone uses against a girlfriend or a boyfriend. It’s not just hitting or other physical violence: it includes put-downs, intimidation, jealousy, and other kinds of behavior. No relationship is perfect, and everyone gets angry or jealous sometimes. What makes it abuse? [...]