Love and Peace: Let's Help Teens Put Them Together

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(WOMENSENEWS)--Today, Oct. 22, marks the start of a major national initiative to define a healthy intimate-partner relationship.

The goal: protecting U.S. teens from the growing menace of intimate-partner violence.

"Start Strong: Building Healthy Teen Relationships," with $18 million in funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Blue Shield of California Foundation, is targeting 11 cities.

It is the largest initiative ever funded to target 11-to-14-year-olds and to rally entire communities to promote healthy relationships and protect their teens.

Today Start Strong teens nationwide are orchestrating local events to take this issue onto the streets where they live during Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The goal is to transform the conversation about dating to focus on developing healthy relationships before violence and abuse begins.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, based in Princeton, N.J., is funding 10 Start Strong sites--Emory University's Jane Fonda Center in Atlanta; Safe Place in Austin, Texas; Idaho Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence in Boise; Boston Public Health Commission; RYASAP in Bridgeport, Conn.; Clarian Health in Indianapolis; Family Violence Law Center in Oakland, Calif.; Sojourner House in Providence, R.I.; Bronx-Lebanon Hospital in the Bronx, N.Y.; and Catholic Charities, Inc. in Wichita, Kan.

http://www.womensenews.org/story/commentary/091021/love-and-peace-lets-help-teens-put-them-together