Podcast Transcript: "Chicago Youth Say No To Dating Violence"

Date: 9/15/2010 | Time: 6:24 | Size: 4 MB
Two young women discuss their attempts to understand dating violence in their Chicago neighborhood and what they and other teens are doing about the problem.
 
JOHN LINGAN:  Welcome to the Positive Youth Development Podcast Series from the Family and Youth Services Bureau within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  The series is produced by the National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth. 
 
I'm John Lingan, a writer for the clearinghouse.  We recently spoke to Gina and Ariana, two twenty-year olds who last year came up with a unique youth-driven way of addressing the rampant teen dating violence problem in their Logan Square Community in North Chicago. 
 
Working with ALSO, the Alliance of Local Service Organizations, Gina and Ariana sought to better understand the scope and origins of dating violence in their community.
 
GINA:  It's because I saw a lot of my friends get beat up all the time.  And I just didn't know how to react to it.  And sometimes like the boys were making me feel like ... they would make me feel like it was cool to beat up girls.  So I started to think and feel like that it's just something that happens every day.  And it became normal to me. 
 
And so I spoke to ALSO.  And, you know, in the interview, they kind of told me like it's not ... it's not okay.  And we want, you know, you teens to know that there's a place where we can help teens know that it's not okay and kind of get into a program and, you know, do all types of things.  So that we can start this internship and summer program to help other teens and stuff like that.  And that's why I was interested in it because I felt like, well, if I start this, a lot of other people are going to want to come and join.  And then it can be a big deal. 
 
JOHN LINGAN:  Along with other teens, Gina and Ariana conducted two surveys of youth in their neighborhood in order to assess their peers' feelings, experiences and concerns regarding dating violence. They then hosted a series of group discussions with some of their respondents. 
 
GINA:  Well, we started off with a whole bunch of questions that we had.  Like we had like fifty questions.  And then as a group, we decided to narrow the questions down to about twenty-five to thirty questions.  And then, yeah, we picked the most strongest questions we thought we wanted to ask.  And the ones ... the questions that we thought would affect us more and, you know, get us better understanding and awareness. 
 
The survey focused on violence between teens and relationships ... and their relationships.  And then like a little bit of background about if they experience violence in their homes or in their streets.  Or did they see their friends getting hit?  You know, things like that.  So it was kind of all around questions about violence.  But more focused on relationships. 
 
We asked the boys and we asked the girls like what's the most harmful things that a girl has done to you for a boy and vice versa.  And we found out the boys said the most harmful like physical abuse that they had, not just physical, but abuse that girls had done to them was more like taking their property away or taking their kids away.  Whereas, girls had answers like a guy beat me up with a bat.  Or he whooped me and things like that. 
 
Kids grow up.  And they grow up with, you know, their parents always fighting and things like that.  And so before they even get in the relationship, they kind of feel like the relationship that they were learned to have was a physical one.  And so that's why kids grow up to teens making it okay or think that it's okay for relationships to be like that. 
 
And so when they get into a relationship, they might have ... they might not only be a victim, but react the same way that their parents do.  And so people need to educate teens about that and about just because it happens in the home doesn't mean it needs to happen in your life. 
 
JOHN LINGAN:  The results of their surveys validated some of Gina and Ariana's worst fears about their peer group.  But they've since come up with a new way to further combat the neighborhood cycle of violence and apathy. And their mentors at ALSO have helped them along the way.
 
GINA:  We get a lot of support.  They just kind of are there to guide us when we need help or like different ways we can do things.  And they help us put our ideas together in the right way, the most effective ways.  And, you know, whenever we need to go to like the organizations, they take us where we need to go.  They help us with like topics or the focus groups and things like that. 
 
ARIANA:  Well, we're planning to grab all the information and everything we then gathered about domestic violence and teen dating violence and all that.  And put it in a magazine.  And we also in the surveys we had asked questions about what do people really need help on?  Like what's the main thing?  And a lot of people said jobs and education. 
 
So we want to grab those resources and put it in a magazine and just have a lot of helpful information to help young teens out about relationship abuse.  You know, people want to know about clinics, where can they go to get free testing.  Or, you know, if they have something, to get cleaned up.  Those are a lot of questions that people can't ask each other because they're ashamed.  So we try to put those answers and that information and those resources in the magazine.  So they ain't got to worry about asking people.  And the magazine's right there to help you out.  And that's basically what we're trying to do is get the word out and stop all this mayhem.

 
GINA:  We also put a section about we did a little research and we called organizations and places and summer programs and things like that.  So that we can find jobs that ... we can find places where they're looking for teens to work in the summer or, you know, internships.  We also put like alternative schools around the area.  So that if they want to go back to school or get their GEDs, they have help and things like that.  We also have a lot of people who are gay and bisexual around this area.  So we put information and places they can go to, things that teens need help with a lot. 
 
ARIANA:  We even found a way to help teens who have been arrested before or have a felony.  So we looked up places that people on probation could get their GED at.  And they could work, you know, things like.  So we're trying to help all kinds of teens.  So that way there won't be no excuses.  And everybody does right.  And, you know, we're just there to help if anybody needs it. 
 
JOHN LINGAN:  If you’re interested in receiving a copy of ALSO’s Teen Zeen, you can contact their office by phone at (773) 235-5705. To learn more about programs related to teen dating violence and positive youth development, please visit the National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth online at ncfy.acf.hhs.gov.
 
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