Interrupting the Cycle of Violence: Empowering Youth to Promote Healthy Relationships (From Child Abuse: New Directions in Prevention and Treatment Across the Lifespan, P 102-129, 1997, David A. Wolfe, Robert J. McMahon, et al., eds. - See NCJ-172926)

• NCJ Number: 172931
• Author(s): D A Wolfe; C Wekerle; D Reitzel-Jaffe; C Grasley; A Pittman; A MacEachran
• Date Published: 1997
• Length: 28 pages
• Grant Number(s): UP
• Sponsoring Agency: Ontario Mental Health Foundation
• Sale Source: Sage Publications, Inc
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter discusses ways that child maltreatment interventions can be integrated into broader intervention and educational services involving children and youth.

Abstract

Current progress in the prevention of child maltreatment has focused primarily on the parent-child relationship at an early age. The article also discusses the merits of involving middle adolescents (ages 14-16) in educational efforts designed to make them more aware of how patterns of violence emerge in relationships and how to prevent such events. Following an overview of the Youth Relationships Project, the article offers initial evaluation results. The importance of relationship formation in adolescence has been largely underplayed in relation to violence prevention and health promotion. Solutions to problems of youth violence and youth conflict have tended to overfocus on youth as the cause and on detection and punishment as the solution. Youth, especially those at greater risk of relationship-based violence and abuse, need education and skills to promote healthy, nonviolent relationships, to develop peer support, and to establish social action aimed at ending violence in relationships. Figure, tables, notes, references