In Touch With Teens, An Effort to Prevent Dating Violence
Abstract
This document chronicles the history of rape as seen by the legal syste~
theories (called approaches) as to why rape and relationship violence exist and
these theories include the feminist perspective, the biological theory, the social
learning theory and the psychological theory. I conducted an explorative study of
the In Touch With Teens (ITWT) dating violence prevention program. ITWT is a
part of Resources Against Violent Encounters (RAVE), a program in a large
metropolitan area which aims to prevent violence.
This study followed a group of at risk teens through the ITWT program to
see whether the program was effective in changing the students' attitudes and
knowledge of dating violence and also to see whether the program's surveys were
effective in evaluating the program efficiently. Students were given pre- and
post-surveys from which overall mean scores were taken to assess the changes in
their understanding of dating violence from the time they began the program to its
conclusion. While the findings were not necessarily statistically significant they
did show an improvement in the students' scores from the pre- to the post-survey.
This suggests that the program did have a positive effect on the students;
however, much more research is needed to assess the long term benefits of dating
violence prevention programs.