This February is National Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month. It is an opportunity to place much needed emphasis on local cutting-edge approaches designed to combat this serious public health issue.

Teen dating violence is very prevalent in Alameda County. According to a 2008 study conducted by the Alameda County Teen Dating Violence Task Force, almost half (44%) of the Oakland youth surveyed reported being intimidated, physically hurt and/or emotionally abused by a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Start Strong Oakland is part of an innovative, national initiative that is having a major impact on the issue of teen dating violence.

Oakland-based Family Violence Law Center was chosen from hundreds of organizations across the country to receive a significant one million dollar grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to participate in a four year initiative, Start Strong: Building Healthy Teen Relationships. Start Strong is the largest national program ever funded to target 11 to 14 year-olds in a public health effort to prevent teen dating abuse.

The participation and support of the entire Oakland/Bay Area community is key in creating environments that ensure that violence and abuse are never tolerated. Start Strong was created to engage teens, parents, community leaders and the media in a collaborative effort to prevent teen dating violence and abuse. 

For the past two years, we have been working with our Start Strong partners, including Youth Radio, Youth Alive and Oakland Unified School District, to develop this initiative. Start Strong Oakland is penetrating the community with programs in middle schools, workshops for parents and social media campaigns that promote healthy relationships and make prevention possible. Our older teens also have stepped up and are playing an important role in this effort.

Community-wide engagement is essential to ensure the success of this pioneering program to protect our young people and bring real results.  To find out more, visit www.fvlc.org/jane or http://www.startstrongteens.org/communities/oakland.