Young people and violence prevention: Domestic Violence Resource Centre Victoria

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Young people and violence prevention

Young people are at greater risk of experiencing sexual assault and violence in their relationships than are older people. An estimated one in three teenagers have witnessed violence in their homes. Young women are more likely to experience sexual assault from partners, acquaintances and strangers than are older women. Many children and young people are also subjected to abuse by family members. [See statistics below ]

Young people, either individually or as a social group, have great difficulty drawing attention to abuse and have little control over interventions that are implemented on their behalf. The dominant cultural construction of young people as irrelevant, unreliable, or as the property of their parents means that they are left vulnerable to abuse.

This webpage outlines the steps DVRCV has taken to target young people, and provides some simple statistics on the prevalence of family and relationship violence in young people's lives.

What is DVRCV doing?

Partners In Prevention - A New Network for Professionals Working with Young People

DVRCV is pleased to announce (2007) our new Partners in Prevention (PIP) project, funded by VicHealth. PIP is a state-wide network for community sector professionals who are working with young people to prevent violence against women.
Before now, professionals involved in primary prevention activities have had few opportunities to share experiences with others working on similar projects in schools or organisations.

The goal of PIP is to share knowledge about effective primary prevention. The network gives workers an opportunity to meet and learn about resources, develop partnerships, provide peer support and professional development. See PIP website.

Bursting the Bubble on family violence

The Bursting the Bubble project of DVRCV provides support and guidance for teenagers experiencing family violence. The website (www.burstingthebubble.com) was the first in Australia, and internationally, to address the specific needs of these teenagers. Content includes: how to identify if abuse is occurring in your family, strategies for protecting yourself, ways of coping with the emotional impact of abuse, advice and stories from other young people, and information about services available. It also covers how friends can help. The site is interactive and includes quizzes and stories.

The website was the subject of an external evaluation in 2004. Young people who participated rated it an effective and useful resource.

See the website www.burstingthebubble.com or for more information on the site, its evaluation, and young People's views on designing effective websites see Bubble evaluation.

To complement the website, the booklets, posters and stickers with the tagline 'Something Not Right At Home?' were developed for teenagers, and distributed throughout Victorian schools and services. To download or order the booklet see Publications

Relationships Education - When Love Hurts

In 1998 DVRCV (then DVIRC)'s When Love Hurts website (www.dvrcv.org.au/whenlove) was the first site internationally to provide comprehensive, practical information to young people on love, respect and abuse in relationships. It won the 2001 Australian Violence Prevention Award. Almost 1,000 young people have sent in their stories about personal experiences of violence to the website, and some of these are available on the site.

The 'Relationships' booklets provide a printed mini-guide on the same subject as When Love Hurts, and has been distributed to schools and services. It has been re-printed by a number of agencies around Australia. See Publications

Children witnessing domestic violence

DVRCV has produced a pamphlet for mothers and other people concerned about children who witness domestic violence. See Publications. In October 2000, the Victorian Week Without Violence campaign focussed on the issue of children exposed to domestic violence. DVRCV's pamphlet and Information Sheet was distributed across Victoria as part of this campaign.

Community campaigns

The Body Shop

The Body Shop (health and beauty product company) has a community campaign on young people experiencing family or relationship violence ('Some Kids Witness More Violence in the Home than they do on TV'). DVRCV worked with the Body Shop on developing the 'Expect Respect' booklet and other material for this campaign. The Body Shop is calling on the government to increase funding for services for young people. See www.thebodyshop.com.au

Week Without Violence campaign in 2003

The 2003 Victorian Community Education campaign in October 2003 focused on children and teenagers living with family violence. The 'Bursting the Bubble' website was launched at a public forum by Deborah Light, Bulletin Journalist who has spoken publicly about her own experiences of growing up with violence [see article in DVRCV's Newsletter Issue 4, 2003]. Chris Goddard, from Monash University launched our Discussion Paper 'What is Child Sexual Abuse - Rethinking what we know'.

Local events were held in regions across Victoria to highlight the need to respond to violence against young people. The booklets for teenagers 'Something Not Right At Home?' were distributed at events and via local services and schools. [To download or order the booklet see Publications].

Postcards promoting the Bursting the Bubble website were distributed in cafes, cinemas and other public places via Avant Card.

More on this see the 101 Ways to Prevent Family Violence kit

Research

DVRCV's Discussion Paper What is Child Sexual Abuse? Rethinking What We Know looks at how we view child sexual abuse, and the importance of listening to children. See Discussion Papers

Training

Children and domestic violence

This Nationally Accredited training course assists professionals to work effectively with children who are living in, or have lived in, a domestic violence situation. Read more about this training.

DVRCV also has a training program on Young People and Domestic Violence.

Some quick statistics:

The Young People and Domestic Violence (2001) survey of 5,000 young Australians, commissioned by National Crime Prevention and the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs found that:

one third of all 12-20 year old girls and boys who have been in a dating relationship, experienced violence in the relationship. Females were more likely to be the victims of more severe violence, sustaining more injuries and experiencing more fear.
of females aged 12-20 years, 14% have experienced rape or sexual assault.
almost a quarter of teenagers surveyed had witnessed an incident of physical domestic violence against their mother or stepmother.
A fact sheet on the findings of this research is online on the National Crime Prevention website.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics' 1996 Women's Safety Survey (1996) found that 19% of women aged 18-24 experienced an incidence of physical or sexual violence in the 12 months prior to the survey by their partner, compared with 6.8% of 35-44 year olds.

A report commissioned by the Allanah and Madelaine Foundation, Childhood abused : the pandemic nature and effects of abuse and domestic violence on children in Australia by Brown, David F and Endekov, Zoran (2005) looked at reports of child abuse. In Australia in 2003-04, there were 219,384 reports of suspected child abuse and neglect, which amounts to one child being reported in Australia every two minutes, or about one report of child abuse for every 25 children. The executive summary of this report is online (pdf) on the Allanah and Madelaine Foundation website.