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.