Dating Matters™: The Next Generation of Teen Dating Violence Prevention

This Special Section was introduced with the assertion that most programs, to date, have been ineffective in preventing intimate partner violence (IPV) and teen dating violence (TDV) because they do not take into account recent work about the development and nature of IPV/TDV (Capaldi and Langhinrichsen-Rohling 2012). Each contribution highlighted dimensions of relationship functioning that can be used to inform the development of prevention programs. The findings in this issue underscore the importance of considering the independent and interactive effects of risk factors occurring at each level of the social ecology, such as alcohol use (Reyes et al. 2012) and violence in the home (Ehrensaft and Cohen 2012), as well as the importance of developing prevention strategies for high-risk groups (Langhinrichsen-Rohling and Turner 2012) that target both boys and girls (Chiodo et al. 2012; O’Leary and Slep 2012) and are strategically administered at key times in adolescent development to stop the initiation or persistence of violence across time and relationships (O’Leary and Slep 2012; Shortt et al. 2012). As national estimates of the frequency of physical dating violence victimization have remained unchanged over the past decade (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 2011), the translation of these findings into effective prevention programs has the potential to transform the field of partner violence prevention. Although some programs (e.g., Building Lasting Love, Langhinrichsen-Rohling and Turner 2012) that reflect these findings have been developed and evaluated, a transformation of the field would require the refinement of many programs currently in practice and the development of new prevention approaches. As an example of a new comprehensive approach that reflects some of the critical findings in this Special Section, the Division of Violence Prevention at CDC is embarking on a new initiative: Dating MattersTM: Strategies to Promote Healthy Teen Relationships. This commentary describes the programmatic strategies involved in Dating MattersTM, when and with whom these strategies will be implemented, and additional characteristics that have been incorporated to enhance the public health impact of the initiative. Dating MattersTM involves a variety of primary prevention strategies to address gaps in prevention programming for youth in urban communities with high crime and economic disadvantage, who may be at highest risk for TDV perpetration and victimization (O’Leary and Slep 2012). To address boys’ and girls’ dating violence (e.g., Chiodo et al. 2012; O’Leary and Slep 2012) and to accommodate transient and amorphous dating relationships that often occur in early adolescence, Dating MattersTM employs universal primary prevention focused on 11to 14-year-old youth. The initiative is implemented in middle school in order to build a foundation of healthy relationship skills among all youth before dating and/or severe TDV is initiated. Dating MattersTM has the potential to prevent the onset of TDV, which could disrupt the stability of violence across relationships and over time. Moreover, in middle school, parents and educators are strong influences and Dating MattersTM seeks to engage them as key prevention agents. Dating MattersTM takes a novel approach to TDV prevention that bridges diverse areas of public health by The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.