Start Strong Atlanta promoting healthy teen relationships

By Gracie Bonds Staples

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

At 4 p.m. last Monday, a dozen or so teenagers gathered in a conference room at Grady Memorial Hospital to plan their next performance around building healthy relationships.

Since the launch of Start Strong Atlanta two years ago, this has been their singular mission: Reducing incidences of dating violence.

For two hours, they ran through a series of skits aimed at exploring how easily signs of affection among their peers can turn into control games, harassment and violence.

Before the end of the month, they will have hosted workshops and performed more than a dozen times for area middle- and high school students and their parents. Tuesday they will be at Redan High, Wednesday at Price Middle School and on Saturday they will host Teen Relationship Day in the Grady Teen Clinic.

Also on Saturday, the Partnership Against Domestic Violence will host its second annual “Spotlight on Teen Dating Violence: Upload Awareness” event beginning at 10 a.m. at the Georgia Tech Student Center.

All indications are, these efforts are paying off, said Dr. Melissa Kottke, medical director of Grady’s Teen Services program and director of the Jane Fonda Center.

“What’s concerning is violence in relationships [is] linked to other health problems,” Kottke said, citing substance abuse, eating disorders and suicide.

But these kids are being prepared to manage relationships in a respectful way, she said.

“What’s so neat and necessary about Start Strong Atlanta is the effort goes to a time in the life span when youth are forming relationships often for the first time," she said. "This is our way of making sure those relationships are healthy from the very beginning.”

In addition, Start Strong Atlanta, one of 10 nationwide projects funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, also provides a safe place – keepitstrongatl.org – for teens to talk about relationships.

Artesse Conley, a 17-year-old Grady High School senior who has been an ambassador of the project since its inception, and newcomer Mena Johnson say Start Strong has given them the knowledge base they need not only to confront peers involved in violent relationships but to offer them help.

Although the teens said they always knew violence in relationships was wrong, they didn’t always know how to respond.

“I have the confidence to talk to more students,” said Johnson, an 18-year-old senior at South Atlanta High. “I even talk to my mom” about her dates.

Until recently, Conley said, he thought violent relationships were the norm. When his friends hit their girlfriends, he said, he didn’t say or do anything.

“Now I’m able to step up and say that’s not cool,” Conley said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of every 10 high school students nationally report being physically abused by a dating partner in the past year. In Georgia, it’s thought to be one in six but some estimates are even higher.

Cathy Willis Spraetz, president and CEO of the Partnership Against Domestic Violence, said that as more teens begin dating at an earlier age, teen dating violence is becoming more prevalent.

“Because of the risks and dangers that our children face, it’s important to teach them about building healthy relationships while learning to recognize abusive patterns,” Spraetz said.

That includes those linked to technology, which has added to the many ways teens can monitor and control their dating partners. Interactions that once were open to parental supervision are now being conducted through cell phones and Internet chat rooms.

For example, Spraetz said that a young woman, who has become an outspoken advocate for education about teen dating violence, shared that her high school boyfriend called her cell phone incessantly, wanting to know where she was, who she was with and what she was doing.

“Unfortunately, many teens don’t realize that excessive calling and texting are a form of dating violence,” she said. “Most teens think if it’s not physical, then it’s not abuse.”

Even parents are in the dark about the issue. Spraetz said that even when teens had dating partners check up on them 30 times a day on their cell phones, two-thirds of their parents were unaware of the abuse.

With the emphasis on education during Teen Dating Violence Prevention Month, she said, it's a good time for parents to put down the phone, turn off the computer and talk to their children about the dangers that technology and social media can present in dating relationships.

It's what Conley, Johnson and their peers with Start Strong Atlanta do year round.