Breaking the Cycle of Teen Dating Violence

Is jealousy a sign of love? Can words hurt?

By the end of a Break the Cycle education program, students should know the answers to these questions. But at the beginning, they’re not so sure.

“Is it ever OK to hit someone?” Break the Cycle staff member Michelle Lilienfeld asked a group of 15- to 18-year-olds at the Maxine Waters Alternative Education Work Center in South Los Angeles. A few held up the color-coded cards Lilienfeld gave them on the red side for no. The majority picked green for yes, then proceeded to tell each other the appropriate time for violence.

This accepting attitude toward violence is what Break the Cycle hopes to dissipate through its work. The Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization’s mission is to empower youths, through preventive education and knowledge of the law, to break the cycle of domestic violence.

While she was growing up, Break the Cycle founder and Executive Director Meredith Blake said she “had never heard the term domestic violence or dating violence.” It wasn’t until Blake was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley that she realized that her first boyfriend in high school was abusive.

And when a friend was date-raped in the dorm Blake lived in during their freshman year, the issue became very real to her. There were tons of places for adult women to get help. But, she said, “I was frustrated with the fact that there was no program that dealt with young people, boys and girls.”

So, in her final year of law school at UCLA, Blake developed a program herself. One that not only targeted dating violence among teens but also incorporated her knowledge of the law. After she graduated in 1995, she set up shop in her West Los Angeles apartment and, with a $30,000 budget, began offering her own free legal services to 12- to 22-year-old victims of abuse.

Today she has an actual office, 11 employees and a $750,000 budget. Break the Cycle has taught at more than 100 Los Angeles-area schools, youth groups and juvenile facilities and reaches more than 10,000 young people each year. And the service is still free.

“We’ve grown quite a bit,” Blake said. The problem of teen dating violence, however, continues.

According to an August article in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., which was based on a Harvard study, 20% of schoolgirls are physically or sexually assaulted by their dating partners. Analyzing data from the 1997 and 1999 Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Surveys, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health also found that such girls are susceptible to other health risks, including drug use, pregnancy and suicide.

Traci Swanson, a 16-year-old Santa Monica High School student, volunteers at Break the Cycle, and said she has told several friends with obsessive, controlling boyfriends to get help there.

“They never did,” she said.

At least one friend really needed the help. In an uncharacteristic abusive relationship, Swanson’s friend hit her boyfriend on occasion. When he took a stand and broke up with the girl, Swanson said, “she kind of went psycho.” Swanson said the girl attempted suicide.

Although Swanson is not able to help everyone, her work as a volunteer has made her more aware of the signs of abuse in a relationship: extreme jealousy or insecurity, isolation, drastic mood swings, financial control and constant put-downs, among others.

Students in Break the Cycle education programs also learn the types of abuse--physical, sexual and emotional--and the cycle of violence.

Using numbers and arrows on the blackboard at the Maxine Waters center, Lilienfeld explained the escalating stages of an abusive relationship: the tension-building phase when petty annoyances pile up, the explosive incident when the abuser lashes out at the abused, the honeymoon stage when they make up, and back to tension building.

This information, called Domestic Violence 101, is delivered the first day of Break the Cycle’s three-day curriculum. The second day, students are taught the definitions of crimes such as assault, battery, stalking and date rape.

“It helps them understand that domestic violence is not just hurtful, but it’s also illegal,” Blake said. In addition, the students are taken through the scenario of an abusive couple, Robert and Lisa, and decide that Lisa needs a restraining order against her boyfriend.

The third day, Blake said, the classroom becomes a courtroom and the students go through the motions of obtaining a restraining order. “It helps to demystify the process for them,” Blake explained.

The classes are for girls and boys. Though the subject is often hard for teenagers to talk about, Lilienfeld said a student’s nod or facial expression tells her “that this valuable information is getting across to them.” After each program, Lilienfeld hands each student a Break the Cycle business card with the Web site and phone number (www.break-the-cyle.org and (888) 988-TEEN) on it. Some call months later, she said.

“Half of the kids who call us and seek help come to us from our education programs,” Blake said.

Sarah Jimenez is a 20-year-old USC student who said dating violence is an often overlooked issue. “I think it’s a problem that isn’t really addressed well enough in the community,” she said. Jimenez is an intern at Break the Cycle, and she invited a staff attorney to speak to a group of middle school girls she mentors.

“People don’t realize that young people can be involved in abusive relationships, too,” she said.

To get out the word, Break the Cycle is in the process of a three-year expansion that would call for opening offices across the country, including San Francisco, New York City and Washington, D.C.

Reaching more youths is important, Blake said, “to keep them from getting into abusive relationships. The best job we do as lawyers is to prevent people from ever becoming clients.”