Teen Dating Violence

Initiatives directed at adolescents and teens are vital to the movement of ending intimate partner violence in the state of North Carolina.

It is reported that 1 in 3 teens will experience dating violence¹. Teens are more likely to report experiencing dating violence to a friend before telling an adult². That is why it is crucial to provide our local communities, schools, and youth with facts and resources about dating violence.

NCCADV has been doing this work through multiple programming efforts, such as:

incorporating primary prevention in schools and college campuses;
enhancing community collaboration with youth-serving agencies;
working with service providers who interact with teens in Latinx communities; and
serving children and youth exposed to domestic violence and at risk of negative outcomes.

NCCADV Programs

Providing trainings, technical assistance and information-sharing to local domestic violence agencies and allied professionals/service providers are strategies applied to each of the following NCCADV programs:

DELTA is focused on primary prevention through community- and societal-level change. DELTA's work impacts teen dating violence primarily through a focus on building work across NC that addresses risk and protective factors that affect multiple forms of violence, including teen dating violence. Various DELTA community partners do direct community and organizational work with systems that involve and impact teens.

The Coordinated Community Response (CCR) Program addresses teen dating violence through collaborative efforts with school systems involved on CCR teams. Specifically, communities with CCR teams work on improving best practices in 1) their school response to incidents of domestic violence and teen dating violence through the development of a protocol and 2) their prevention efforts in schools.

The Latinx Program addresses teen dating violence through efforts to collaborate with organizations that work with Latinx teens. The Latinx Program is also developing relationships with local schools to better understand their response to dating violence in the Latinx community.

The Child Advocacy and Services Enhancement (CASE) Project recognizes that youth exposed to domestic violence are at increased risk for experiencing an abusive relationship as a teen and/or adult in comparison to youth who did not witness domestic violence in the home. The CASE Project concentrates on providing technical assistance and training to raise awareness of the signs of dating violence and champion the need for a spectrum of interventionist services for teens in North Carolina.

You can find more details about each program by following the links above or by calling (919) 956-9124.

¹Davis, Antoinette, MPH. 2008. Interpersonal and Physical Dating Violence among Teens. The National Council on Crime and Delinquency Focus. Available here.

² U.S. Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice. National Institute of Justice. Research. In Brief. November 2014. Teen Dating. Violence. How Peers Can Affect Risk. & Protective Factors. By Barbara Oudekerk, Ph.D. Dara Blachman-Demner, Ph.D. and Carrie Mulford, Ph.D. Available here.