Government Web Site Gives Tips to Help Teens Avoid Violence

To help teenagers learn to “walk away from violence,” the White House has set up a hotline and Web site offering tips on peacefully resolving disputes, President Clinton said Saturday.

In his weekly radio address, broadcast one week before he leaves office, Clinton also promoted a new government guide aimed at improving communication between parents and their teenage children.

The guide provides information on normal adolescent development, identifying problem behaviors and finding help outside the family.

“There is nothing more precious to a parent than a child, and nothing more important to our future than the safety of all our children. So let’s do all we can to protect them from harm and teach them to walk away from violence,” Clinton said.

The site, https://www.safeyouth.org, is run by the National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center. The toll-free number for the center is (866) SAFEYOUTH (723-3968).

The Web site still was not operational several hours after Clinton’s announcement, and White House officials were checking with their technical experts to see when it would be up and running.

It was developed by the White House Council on Youth Violence and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to give Americans a one-stop spot to access information about youth violence, including suicide, that is available from all federal agencies. It also will provide links to resources in the private sector.

“Over the past few years, terrible tragedies at Columbine and other schools have forced us to take a hard look at youth violence and an even harder look at what each of us can do and must do to ensure that such tragedies do not happen again,” Clinton said. He was referring to the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., in which 15 people were killed.

Last month, the Justice Department reported that a six-year decline in murders by teenagers cut the 1999 homicide arrest rate for juveniles by 68% from its 1993 peak to the lowest level since 1966.