Dating / Relationship Violence

Much has been written about helping youth to develop healthy dating relationships. Schools have integrated this into their curriculums and faith communities have addressed it through youth groups. Unfortunately these are places that are not typically where one would find a runaway and homeless youth and, yet, unhealthy and violent relationships are all too common in their lives. Domestic Violence programs and Runaway and Homeless Youth programs have much to learn from one another but it is rare to find collaborations between these fields. MANY and the PCADV (Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence) collaborated to bring these two systems together as a Learning Community to share information about one anothers’ services and to develop strategies and tools to improve outreach and services that address the shared concern. Together we have learned a great deal and have developed tools to expand our work beyond the learning community so that others may benefit.