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Dating Violence Intervention Program (DVIP)

The Dating Violence Intervention Program provides education, intervention, and youth empowerment through individual counseling, group and classroom education, and peer leader training to local youth regarding issues of violence. DVIP program teaches teens healthy and respectful standards of behavior and strategies to prevent dating violence. We provide training and support to school staff and community providers in effectively responding to teens facing violence in their lives. Each year we reach at least 3,500 youth.

DVIP Services for Schools and Community

Do you have concerns about violence related problems in your school or with your child? Could your school benefit from specialized support regarding teen dating violence, anger management, youth empowerment or bullying prevention for your teachers, students and parents?

How can your school utilize DVIP services?

DVIP will work with you to create programming to address issues that are affecting the specific needs of your students. Our services are affordable and we have successfully found funding for every school, student or family that has expressed a need for our services.

The Dating Violence Intervention Program may be just the help you seek.

DVIP Services: Currently we have contracts to work in seven schools in Cambridge and Somerville middle and high schools. Some of the services we provide are:

  • One-on-one Clinical Counseling and Group Counseling: for teens and preteens who are experiencing violence in their lives (including gender specific intervention for victims and perpetrators).

  • Curriculum-Based Violence Prevention Classes: Using our own "Understanding and Responding to Teen Dating Violence" we specialize in facilitating a 16 week, half year, teen dating violence prevention class where youth learn about dating violence as well as how to prevent or escape relationship violence.

  • Youth Empowerment Groups: such as Peer Leadership groups where we cover topics such as violence prevention education, girls health including lessons on sexual health and drugs/alcohol prevention, how to be a good friend, how to have healthy relationships.

  • Bullying Intervention Education: Curriculum based classes and trainings about bullying intervention and prevention for students, how teachers can help prevent bullying and aid in creating anti-bullying policies and guidelines in schools for students, as well as teachers, to follow.

  • Special Events: such as "Woman-to-Woman Day" and "Teen Dating Violence Awareness Day" which include school assemblies, seminars and awareness building activities.

  • Classroom Workshops: Short-term workshops covering issues of dating violence, by teacher invitation.

  • Crisis intervention: on call during school hours for sexual assaults and acts of violence. We have trained crisis staff who accompany students to hospitals for rape examinations, help with restraining orders and interactions with the Department of Social Services and police.

  • Teacher Trainings: facilitating curriculum based training from our own "Understanding and Responding to Teen Dating Violence" curriculum to help nurses, counselors and teachers to feel comfortable and informed when dealing with youth and dating violence.

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DVIP Trainings and Curriculum for Youth Providers

Community Trainings: DVIP now offers informative trainings for community members and youth workers. In these trainings, DVIP educators will help teach how to respond to teens who may be dealing with dating violence as well as teaching all youth about how to enter into healthy relationships and prevent abuse. Our standard training is based on our new DVIP curriculum entitled "Understanding and Responding to Teen Dating Violence"; so you can learn how to facilitate the lessons from the curriculum as well as learn important insight about experiences of working with teens in crisis. In addition, we are happy to work with you to create a custom dating violence training that best fits your needs by teaching about specific youth violence issues that are affecting your youth.

Please email dvip@transitionhouse.org for more information and costs.

DVIP also provides workshops and training for school administrators, parents, and community organizations. Training sessions are tailored to the needs of the host organization, but always provides both general and in-depth information on dating violence, its complexities, its warning signs, how to intervene, and most importantly, how to communicate with youth involved in or affected by dating violence.

Materials are also available for those who attend the training. Presentations have previously included the Somerville Department of Youth Services, Just a Start, the DSS Teen Living Program, the Cambridge Youth Peace and Justice Corps, and the Survivor Assistance of Boston to name a few. Groups are led by DVIP counselors experienced in domestic violence, youth counseling, and group facilitation. Consultation and case discussion occur as needed in meetings between the Counselor and the DVIP Program Director.

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The DVIP Curriculum

"Understanding and Responding to Teen Dating Violence"

You can now purchase the new Dating Violence Intervention Program curriculum!

Stay informed when dealing with dating violence by familiarizing yourself with more than 12 lesson plans about how to teach students about dating violence and help them in crisis. Includes structured and comprehensive lesson plans with worksheets, icebreaker activities and debriefing tools.

We suggest taking our DVIP community training in which a DVIP instructor will go over many of the lessons and offer insight from the writers of the curriculum who have taught in classrooms.

The cost of the DVIP curriculum lesson plans is $150 and you can purchase it:

by mailing your request with a check or money order, payable to

    Transition House
    649 Massachusetts Ave, Suite 6
    Cambridge, MA 02139

by emailing a request to dvip@transitionhouse.org
(please indicate "curriculum purchase order" in the subject)


The price is subject to change if the curriculum materials are purchased in addition to training or other Transition House DVIP services.

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Staffing and Volunteers

The Program Director of DVIP is Julie Kahn, LICSW.

Prior to joining Transition House, Ms. Kahn had extensive experience providing crisis intervention and long term therapy to survivors of domestic violence in battered women's shelter and in participating in the development of program protocols and group curriculums in those shelters. She has been a school social worker providing primary therapeutic support to a therapeutic high school program and has provided long term psychotherapy to students with significant behavioral, emotional, and learning disabilities in the Boston Public Schools. Ms Kahn is also bilingual in Spanish and English. She holds a Master's Degree in Social Work from Smith College School for Social Work as well as a Bachelors Degree, cum laude, in Psychology and a minor in Spanish from the University of Massachusetts


Volunteers and Summer Student Interns

DVIP is always looking for new volunteers and summer interns. Currently we are looking for volunteers that have graphic design skills and/or event planning and/or donation organizing skills as well as someone who can work during regular business hours. We are also looking for student interns for the summer who would like work regularly for DVIP.

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Schools Participating in Dating Violence Intervention Programs

In the last program period, the Dating Violence Intervention Program reached approximately 3,500 youth, ages 12-19, with educational programs, individual clinical counseling, and community outreach. Participating schools have included:

  • Somerville High School, Triton High School
  • Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School
  • Boston High School
  • Full Circle Alternative High School in Somerville
  • Next Wave Alternative Middle School in Somerville
  • Fletcher-Maynard School
  • Haggerty School
  • St. Peters School
  • Maria Baldwin School
  • King Open School in Cambridge
  • Amigos School in Cambridge
  • King (Harrington) School in Cambridge

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Statement of Need
According to The National Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), data from a study of 8th and 9th grade male and female students indicates that 25% had been victims of non-sexual dating violence and 8% had been victims of sexual dating violence. In the state of Massachusetts, a 2003 youth survey administered by the Department of Education (DOE) cited that eleven percent (11%) of all high school students in the Commonwealth (15% of females and 7% of males) had experienced violence in a dating relationship. Students were asked to report if they had ever been hurt physically or sexually by a date or someone they were going out with. Five percent (5%) of all students reported being hurt physically, 3% were hurt sexually, and another 3% were hurt both physically and sexually.

Information for Teens
Sometimes teens are in a relationship and they do not even realize that it is abusive. If you ever have ever found yourself wondering if your relationship (or a friend's relationship) is abusive, or something just does not seem quite right between you and your partner, please read on! There is a lot of helpful information on this page about what the warning signs of an abusive relationship are, and how to get help.

Are you concerned about your relationship, but not sure if it is abusive?

Here are some questions you can ask yourself.
Has your partner ever done any of these things to you...

  • Restricted what you can wear in public?
  • Told you who you hang out with and told you how much time you can spend with them?
  • Demanded sex, even when you didn't feel like it?
  • Called you awful names that you have asked them to stop calling you?
  • Embarrassed you publicly or privately?
  • Kept track of everything you do?
  • Blamed you for being mean to you and told you it's your fault because you made them so mad...
  • Threatened to harm you, or threatened to harm themselves if you ever leave them?

You are not alone if you answered yes to any of these questions. 1 out of 4 teens may be in an abusive relationship. You may need our help and we can help you.

Call us at 617-868-1650 or email us at dvip@transitionhouse.org

Has anyone ever told you that you might be abusive?
Have you ever...

  • Told your partner what to wear or what not to wear?
  • Picked your girlfriend's (partner's) friends or told her you hate her friends and told her to stop seeing them?
  • Demanded sex from anyone?
  • Monitored how much time your girlfriend (partner) spends with their friends and was pissed off if it's for too long?
  • Threatened your girlfriend (partner)?
  • Felt extremely jealous of anyone else your partner spends time with?
  • Kept track of everything your girlfriend (partner) does?

What was your reaction?

  • Where you very angry with them?
  • Did you tell them to mind their own business?
  • Was it your girlfriend/boyfriend?
  • Was it your parents or their parents?

You are not alone if you answered yes to any of these questions. 1 out of 4 teens may be in an abusive relationship. You may need our help and we can help you.

Email us at dvip@transitionhouse.org


If you are still wondering about what signals may indicate an abusive relationship, here are some additional warning signs for you to think about. Keep in mind that all relationships have conflict and if some of these warning signs seem familiar it does NOT necessarily mean that you are in an abusive relationship. But if you are worried and many of these warning signs remind you of your own relationship or a friend's relationship, please call us at 617-868-1650.

Warning Signs for Survivors and Abusers in Teen Dating Violence

Survivor Signs

  • Are they missing out on practice and other activities in which they were once involved?
  • Have their grades in schoolwork dropped dramatically?
  • Are their boyfriends much older? (abusers often seek out much younger women)
  • Are their boyfriends always around, at every practice, etc.?
  • Do they appear to have sudden bruises, cuts, and other wounds, and have excuses for how they got them? Do they try to cover body damage with their clothing?
  • Do they seem to be highly defensive, sensitive, and emotional?
  • Are they frequently depressed?
  • Is there a dramatic change in clothing, weight, or general appearance?
  • Is there evidence of self-destructive behavior, including "cutting", binge drinking, drug use, or eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia?
  • Do they appear to be nervous all the time?
  • Are they hypersensitive to loud noises and feeling like they are being watched?
  • Do they resist talking about dating partners, and deny that there is conflict?
  • Is there a history of violence in the family? (this is sometimes an indicator)
  • Is there evidence of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Abuser Signs

  • Are they critical, negative and mean towards their dating partners?
  • Do they accuse their partners of cheating and being unfaithful?
  • Do they try to control their partners: what they wear, whom they talk to, where they go?
  • Do they stalk their partners, following their every move?
  • When there is conflict in the relationship, are there insincere and short-lived apologies?
  • Do they blame others, including partners, family members or friends for their own wrongdoings in the relationship? Abusers rarely take responsibility for their abusive behaviors?
  • Are they short tempered?
  • Do they often seem angry when talking about their partners or their partners' family and friends?
  • Have they had military or police training or other employment training that that involves physical violence?
  • Do they use drugs and alcohol excessively?
  • Do they have an interest in weapons and access to weapons?
  • Do they have a family history of domestic violence?

You are not alone if you answered yes to any of these questions. 1 out of 4 teens may be in an abusive relationship. You may need our help and we can help you.

Email us at dvip@transitionhouse.org


Links to Teen Dating Violence Information

Emerge: Information about Domestic Violence Intervention
http://www.emergedv.com

The National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center
http://www.safeyouth.org/scripts/teens/dating.asp

Office of the Attorney General
http://www.atg.wa.gov/violence

Drug and Alcohol Abuse Information for Teens
http://www.freevibe.com

National Institute on Drug Abuse for Teens
http://teens.drugabuse.gov

National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center
http://www.safeyouth.org

RAINN, Rape Abuse and Incest National Network
http://www.rainn.org/