engleski

Prevention of youth dating violence in Zadar County: a project collaboration between the County Institute of Public Health and the Department of Psychology at the University of Zadar

In 2018 the Division for Mental Health of the Zadar County Institute of Public Health started a prevention program within the project „Mental health for everyone“ that is focused on the prevention of physical, psychological, and sexual violence in youth dating relationships. The program is implemented in collaboration with the Department of Psychology, University of Zadar, and funded by the Croatian Ministry of Health. The program aims are to draw attention to the problem of youth dating violence and advocate for a better prevention on the local level, to raise awareness about the dating violence and healthy relationships among high school students, and to increase competencies of the Institute's mental health workers and the local school psychologists in effective prevention of the youth dating violence. This presentation will provide an overview of two main activities in the first project year: (a) a two-module curriculum designed for psychologists working at the Institute's youth counselling units and the secondary schools around the Zadar County and (b) an interactive classroom curriculum of four 45-minute sessions designed for high school students, which is taught by trained educators. Both activities focus on violence forms, risk and protecting factors, and the skills that are needed to form and maintain a healthy relationship. The outcomes include a rising awareness of one's own exposure and/or use of violence as well as of the willingness to ask and provide assistance and support to both victims and perpetrators. As evidenced in the feedback from the participants, both types of activities in the program are perceived as informative, interesting, and well designed for actual use in the settings outside the curriculum.

Youth dating relationships, violence prevention program, two-model curriculum

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