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Curricula for Adolescents – Teens

Table of ContentsResource GuidesSpecial Focus: Youth Driven ProgramsInformation for Building your Own Curriculum Information from the Centers for Disease Control and PreventionInformation from the National Center for Victims of CrimeTeen Dating Violence Videos Curricula for TeensGender Specific GroupsFemalesMalesPrevent unhealthy relationships with older menHomelessRecommended ReadingBooksWeb Sites for TeensAdditional ResourcesTeen Dating Violence VideosMany violence against women prevention efforts include reaching teens. Since primary prevention efforts seek to prevent first time perpetration or victimization, prevention efforts must work with teens and children. Many national initiatives also target teens using strategies other than presentations.

Resource Guides

Special Focus: Youth Driven Programs

This show discusses statewide and local youth-driven violence prevention initiatives in Alaska and Florida. Both funded through CDC’s DELTA program, the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault (ANDVSA) and the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence (FCADV) share strategies and lessons learned through the development and implementation of two positive campaigns to engage youth: Stand Up Speak Up! and I Am Courageous. This 30 minute program will highlight the challenges and rewards of promoting primary prevention messaging during Domestic Violence Awareness Month and beyond.

  • Youth Activist Prevention Toolkit: This toolkit provides ideas for youth activists across the state to educate others about teen dating violence and to take action in their communities and schools.

Information for Building your Own Curriculum

Information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Information from the National Center for Victims of Crime

Teen Dating Violence Videos

Curricula for Teens

  • Aggressors, Victims, and Bystanders: Thinking and Acting to Prevent Violence is a 12-session violence prevention curriculum that is recommended for students in grades 6-8. It is part of the Teenage Health Teaching Modules, a comprehensive health education curriculum, and it focuses on analyzing habits of thought that promote, allow for, or prevent violence. In addition to considering the behaviors and motivations of people who commit acts of violence, the module addresses the roles that victims and bystanders play in violent situations and explores how all three groups can respond differently to conflict. Aggressors, Victims, and Bystanders was selected as a “best practice” program by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in 2000.
    • Intended for grades 6-8
  • Bully Busters: A Teacher’s Manual for Helping Bullies, Victims, and Bystanderswas developed in 2000 to help teachers reduce aggression and bullying in the classroom by building upon students’ social skills and character development. It has two sections, one for students in grades K-5 and one for students in grades 6-8. Both sections include a CD-ROM with PDFs of all of the reproducible forms and student handouts contained in the manual. There are 36 activities designed to increase student participation in reducing and preventing bullying, as well as to strengthen the student/teacher relationship. CAstand2gether: By teens 4 teens, Stand2gether is a movement of youth who unite for care, respect, love and trust in dating relationships. Across California, we are leading, organizing, and sharing our experiences. Join us and connect to a better future for all teens!
  • “Coaching Boys To Men” Program
  • Date Safe Project: Through interactive presentations, educational resources, and unique national initiatives, The Date Safe Project is committed to being the nation’s leading organization for teaching how “asking first” makes all the difference in creating safer intimacy and in decreasing occurrences of sexual assault.
  • Deana’s Educational Theater: Deana’s Educational Theater develops and produces high impact programs to promote healthy relationships.
  • Expect Respect, a curriculum from Austin Safe Place in TX. This program has been used for quite some time and has also been evaluated. See Major Article: Expect Respect
  • The Fourth ‘R’ Youth Relationships Project is an 18-session curriculum created by Strategies for Healthy Youth Relationships, a consortium of researchers and professionals dedicated to promoting healthy adolescent relationships and reducing risk behaviors in Ontario, Canada. It focuses on healthy adolescent relationships, gender role expectations, alternatives to aggressive problem-solving, violence and sexist media, alcohol and drug use, abuse of power and control, sexism, decision-making, date rape, handling dating stresses, and violence. The curriculum teaches communication and conflict resolution skills through solving hypothetical problem situations, and its activities provide students with information about the resources that are available in their community.
  • Gender and Violence: How media shape our culture – An 8-session curriculum on media literacy from the New Jersey Coalition Against Sexual Assault. Includes lesson plans, process and outcome evaluation tools, and background/framing.
  • Healthy Relationships is a curriculum developed by Men for Change, a group in Nova Scotia, Canada, whose purpose is to promote positive masculinity and end sexism and violence. The Healthy Relationships curriculum is designed to help students analyze the culture of violence that condones abusive behavior and empower them to create a culture that is violence-free. It consists of three “volumes,” one titled “dealing with aggression,” another titled “gender equality and media awareness,” and a third volume, “forming healthy relationships.” The curriculum also includes 53 user-friendly activities, dozens of reproducible student handouts, and a comprehensive print and video resource appendix. The full curriculum can take up to 75 hours of instructional time if all of the activities and their extensions are used.
  • Helping Teens Stop Violence: A Practical Guide for Counselors, Educators, and Parents Allan Creighton with Paul Kivel.
  • In Touch With Teens: at Peace Over Violence
  • Love – All That and More A Video Series and Six-Session Curriculum on Healthy Relationships from the Faith Trust Institute
    • The set includes Set of three videos What Do You Want? (22 minutes), Let’s Talk about Sex (19 minutes) and Putting It All Together (23 minutes); Six-session curriculum (50 minutes each) with lesson plans, including background materials on healthy and abusive relationships; suggestions for the facilitator; discussion questions; and dynamic, interactive follow-up activities; Facilitator’s guide for use with Christian youth; Facilitator’s guide for use with Jewish youth
  • Love Is Not Abuse was Liz Clairborne’s program on teen dating violence that included materials and a curriculum. Love is Not Abuse joined under the umbrella of Break the Cycle They will continue to offer curricula about dating violence for teens, as well as other educational tools.
  • Love Shouldn’t Hurt is a healthy relationships curriculum for Jewish youth ages 11-21 from Shalom Bayit, Bay Area Jewish Women Working to End Domestic Violence. The published curriculum includes a facilitators’ guide, three teen workshop units (middle school, high school, and college), companion workshops for parents, and options for follow-up activities and “stage II” workshops.
  • Making the Peace: a 15-Session Violence Prevention Curriculum for Young People Paul Kivel & Allan Creighton with the Oakland Men’s Project is a comprehensive program created by the Oakland Men’s Project (OMP) to promote the prevention of family and relationship violence among teens. OMP works with a sponsor, such as a local nonprofit, to develop a core group of regional community members to train 30-50 people to conduct relationship violence activities with adolescent youth. With the help of OMP, the core group works with trainees to design and conduct a year-long program for teens to build respect and stop violence. Throughout the duration of the program, participants learn a community-based, multicultural, alliance-building approach to empowering people and their communities to stop relationship violence. They also learn to understand the roots of violence in our society based on gender, age, race, and socioeconomic background, as well as develop and practice concrete interventive and prevention approaches for youth and adults dealing with interpersonal violence. The program can also be used with Helping Teens Stop Violence, Young Men’s Work, and Young Women’s Lives.
  • May I Kiss You? A Candid Look at Dating, Communication, Respect, & Sexual Assault Awareness is used by several middle schools throughout the country to discuss sexual assault awareness. Many interactive exercises can be utilized with students throughout the book.
  • Mentors in Violence Prevention: MVP Strategies
  • Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (Violence Prevention Works!)
  • One Student: Provides students and their allies with programs, resources and opportunities to address sexual violence.
  • The Quiet Storm Project
  • Safe and Respectful Relationships For All
  • SAFE DATES is a multi-faceted dating violence prevention program with many research articles demonstrating effectiveness. See Major Article: SAFE DATES
  • Sexual Violence in Teenage Lives: A Prevention Curriculum a Planned Parenthood Curriculum by Judy Cyprian, Katherin McLaughlin and Glenn Quint.
  • STRYVE (Striving to Reduce Youth Violence Everywhere) by the CDC.
  • Too Good For Violence – SAMHSA approved
  • **Unmasking Sexual Con Games** by Kathleen M. McGee and Laura J. Buddenberg by Boys Town Press.
  • Young Men’s Work: Stopping Violence and Building Community Allan Creighton and Paul Kivel
  • Young Women’s Lives: Building Self-Awareness for Life M. Nell Myhand and Paul Kivel
  • The Youth Relationships Manual: A Group Approach with Adolescents for the Prevention of Woman Abuse and the Promotion of Healthy Relationships was designed by Western Ontario University and provides step-by-step instructions for conducting relationship violence prevention trainings and action planning sessions with youth groups. It has 18 sessions which build upon one another and can be used in a school or after-school group setting. The curriculum helps teens learn basic facts and definitions related to dating violence, understand the links between gender-based violence and other forms of oppression, develop new relationship skills, and organize a community outreach event together. The prevention program is facilitated through the use of a manual published by Sage Publications. This manual provides the curriculum for the 18 week prevention program, a discussion of the philosophy and goals of the project, and tips for implementing the program in your community.
    • Reference: Wolfe, D.A., Wekerle, C., Gough, R., Reitzel-Jaffe, D., Grasley, C., Pittman, A.L., Lefebvre, L., Stumpf, J. (1996). The Youth Relationships Manual: A Group Approach with Adolescents for the Prevention of Woman Abuse and the Promotion of Healthy Relationships. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Gender Specific Groups

Females

  • Expect Respect from Safe Place, Austin, Texas See Major Article: Expect Respect
  • Young Women’s Work from from Paul Kivel

Males

Prevent unhealthy relationships with older men

  • Unequal Partners: Teaching About Power and Consent in Adult-Teen Relationships by Sue Montfort and Peggy Brick
  • Isn’t She a Little Young: Sex with a Minor, Don’t Go There is a campaign from Virginia Department of Public Health.
  • Gracias Papa is a sexual-violence-prevention campaign designed to help Latina adolescents (ages 11-17) living in Virginia avoid coercive, exploitive, and unhealthy relationships with older men. The campaign includes radio spots and a fotonovela (comicbook-style brochure) featuring Latino fathers with daughters
    • This manual is designed for professionals to educate young people to make healthy decisions about relationships, especially those involving the power imbalances that can occur when there are significant age differences.
    • 24 interactive lessons for use with young people ages 10-17 help:
      • identify characteristics of relationships which are honest, equal andresponsible
      • rehearse skills for asserting their relationship rights
      • practice responding to a variety of situations regarding unhealthy relationships
      • examine legal issues, including age of consent, in their own state
      • know the particular risks and issues regarding adult-teen relationships.

Homeless

There are curricula specific to homeless youth, inlcuding youth at-risk for prostitution.

Recommended Reading

Books

“TOTALLY WIRED” By: Anastia Goodstein
“ODD GIRL OUT” By: Rachel Simmons
“NET CRIMES & MISDEMEANORS” By: J.A. Hitchcock
“KATIET.COM” or “A GIRLS LIFE ONLINE” By: Katherine Tarbox
“THE GIFT OF FEAR” By: Gavin DeBecker
“Protecting The Gift: Keeping Children & Teenagers Safe and Parents Sane” By: G. DeBecker
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THERE?” By: Giannetti & Sagarese
“Cyberbullying & Cyberthreats: Responding To The Challenge of Online Social Cruelty, Threats & Distress” By: Nancy Willard
“THE BERENSTEIN BEARS LOST IN CYBERSPACE” By: Jan & Stan Berenstain
“A Parents Guide To The Internet and How To Keep Your Children Safe” By: Parry Aftab
“Safe Surfing on the Internet” by Art Wolinsky

Web Sites for Teens

Many web sites are listed on the Teen Dating Violence NRCDV Website Resource List developed by the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence (June 2004)

Additional Resources

Teen Dating Violence Videos