FVLC in the News

The Family Violence Law Center, where my mother Cherri N. Allison is executive director, is in the news. They've just been awarded a million dollar grant to help stop teen abuse. Check out the article my mother just forwarded me. *smoochies* - Lady A

Law center awarded $1 million grant for teen dating violence prevention

By Kamika Dunlap
Oakland Tribune

Updated: 11/21/2008 05:33:10 PM PST

OAKLAND — The Family Violence Law Center received a $1 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to fund an initiative to prevent teen dating abuse.

The goal of the four-year initiative, Start Strong: Building Healthy Teen Relationships, is to raise awareness of teen dating violence as a public health issue and to create comprehensive prevention programs.

The foundation is spending $18 million, the largest amount it has ever invested in reducing intimate partner abuse among teens. The Family Violence Law Center, which serves Alameda County, is one of 11 sites from around the country that the foundation selected to participate in the initiative.

"I'm really excited about this," said Cherri Allison, executive director of the Family Violence Law Center. "This is a very prestigious grant award. I hope this will go a long way to reinforce to teens how to build healthy relationships and to stem violence in general in the community."

Nationally, one in three teens experiences abuse in their romantic relationships, including verbal and emotional abuse, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The Family Violence Law Center will collaborate on the initiative with local partners including, Youth ALIVE!, Youth Radio and the Oakland Unified School District. The center provides a range of specialized assistance. It operates a Teen Crisis Line and offers free individual counseling.

Teens also can get information on their dating rights at the center, and youths as young as 12 may obtain a restraining order without parental consent.

Last year, about one-third of dating and domestic violence calls reported in Oakland were from youths and young adults 12 to 24, according to Oakland police.

Allison said the hope is to train and reach about 16,000 youths a year through school programs, peer education and multimedia campaigns. Young people often do not recognize the signs of abuse or know who they can turn to for help, she said.

In February, Oakland participated in National Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Week. Middle and high school students had an opportunity to learn about the warning signs of teen dating violence through workshops, poster campaigns, a film and a poetry event.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is working with Blue Shield of California, its California partner and the Family Violence Prevention Fund, the national program office in San Francisco, to direct and implement the initiative. Each site will work with sixth to eighth graders to promote health models that help break the cycle of violence at an early age. The initiative also includes using cutting edge social marketing and new media technology strategies to affect youths, and a research and evaluation process.

"What we know is that intimate partner violence is common, serious and costly because it gets passed on to children and families," said James Marks, senior vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "We're hoping that by starting young with prevention, we can help the community find a way to turn this thing around."

According to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in five teens reports being physically or sexually abused by a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Marks said the subject of teen dating abuse prevention has generated lots of interest, and the foundation received more than 1,000 applications and grant proposals.

"This was so compelling to us," he said. "As a foundation we want to find out what programs are new and which ones work best so that we could really influence our nation as a whole."