Introduction

 

What is Abuse?

Dating or domestic abuse occurs when one partner uses different types of abusive behavior to gain POWER and CONTROL over the other partner.

Dating or domestic violence is a pattern of behavior that can include emotional/mental/verbal, financial, physical, sexual, and social abuse.

Abuse can happen to anyone! Teens and adults experience abuse in their relationships at the exact same rate! Dating abuse can happen to anyone, no matter their sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnicity, income level, educational and/or national background!

 

Destructive relationships during the teen years can lead to lifelong unhealthy relationship practices, may disrupt normal development, and can contribute to other unhealthy behaviors in teens that can lead to chronic mental and physical health conditions in adulthood. Teens who were physically hurt by a dating partner were more likely to say they engage in risky sexual behavior, binge drink, use drugs, attempt suicide, and participate in physical fights.

•             One in 10 adolescents reports being a victim of physical dating violence.

•             One in 4 adolescents report verbal, physical, emotional or sexual abuse each year.

•             About 72 percent of eighth and ninth graders report "dating."

•             Teen dating abuse most often takes place in the home of one of the partners.

 

You will as work as part of team using the PPA to develop 3 new policies to address the issue and then select the best policy. 

 

 

Task

 

As a policy analyst, it will be your job to investigate the causes and formulate some solutions for abuse in teen relationships and present it in the form of a typed, argument paper using all the steps of the Public Policy on Relationship Abuse. In your essay you must: Define the Problem, Gather the Evidence, Identify the Causes, Evaluate an Existing Policy, Develop Solutions and Select the Best Solution.  Finally you must evaluate the Feasibility vs. Effectiveness of the proposed solution

 

 

You will also be responsible for presenting a shortened version of your paper to a committee made up of your peers in which you’ll present a policy that Truman High school should adopt and why. You should also come up with a list of existing resources that teens can turn to if they are having any issues related to abuse in romantic relationships.

 

 

1.  Students will read and write for information and understanding.

2.  Students will read and write for literary response and expression.

3.  Students will read and write for critical analysis and evaluation.

4.  Students will speak and listen for social interaction.

5.  Students will research for and use primary government documents.

6. Students will chart the historical, economic and historical realities that have contributed to current public policy.

 

 

Process

 

In order to do the task, you must first complete six (6) worksheets.  You will be working in groups and each group member will lead the discussion and preparation by the team of one worksheet.  Then you will each take turns sharing your responses with your other group members. These worksheets will help you organize and outline your ideas. Clicking on one of the links below (in the blue font) will bring you to a worksheet. The worksheets are in order, so you should complete worksheet one (1) before you do worksheet three (3), for example. Additionally, you will visit five websites to gather information about the problem. The websites you visit will provide information that you will use (cite) in your paper. When you use information from websites, you have to make sure your reader knows where you got the information and to give the credit where credit is due. Clicking here will tell you how to do this. We will also review this in class. I have provided some websites for you. In addition, you will be responsible for finding four (4) other websites, not given in the resources list below.

 

Organizing Ideas/Worksheets

 

1.     Identifying the Problem, and  Worksheet #1

2.     Gathering Evidence, and  Worksheet # 2

3.     Identify Causes of the problem, and  Worksheet # 3

4.     Evaluate the Policy, and  Worksheet #4

5.     Develop a solution to the Problem, Worksheet #5

        6.     Selecting the Best Solution, and  Worksheet #6

 

 

Resources

 

•     You will complete the following public policy worksheets:

              a. Defining the Social Problem

http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/select.html

              b. Gathering the evidence

              http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/worksheet2.htm

              c. Identifying the cause of the problem

              http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/worksheet3.htm

d. Evaluating existing public policies

http://maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/existing.html

                   e. Developing your own original public policy

                   http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/worksheet5.html

 

 

Evaluation

 

You will be evaluated on a scale of 1-4, with 4 being the highest.

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

Policymakers like you can play a role in preventing teen dating violence. At least 19 states have laws that urge or require school boards to develop curriculum on teen dating violence. Many states have also adopted teen dating violence awareness weeks or months, in an effort to draw the public's attention to a national campaign that promotes prevention, safe dating practices and offers information and resources. 

 

Adolescence is a "window of opportunity" for prevention, and policymakers such as yourself can play a role in preventing teen dating violence. Laws in at least 14 states urge or require school boards to develop curriculum on teen dating violence and at least 8 states considered legislation in 2011. States also have adopted teen dating violence awareness weeks or months to bring attention to prevention and safe dating practices.

 

After participating in this assignment in the future, you will be able to define, research and critically think about a social issue in your community. You will also be able to analyze the effectiveness of policies and advocate for changes, locate community resources, be able to gather and present information both orally and in written form and link the idea of narrative stories to social justice activism.