“Dating violence” or “domestic abuse” has a history of being attributed to violence in spousal and cohabitation relationships. While definitions of domestic abuse vary, dating violence is identified as violence through acts of physical, sexual, verbal, or emotional abuse where one person is the perpetrator, and the other is the victim. What is unclear among many people interested in the topic is the ages of the people experiencing or perpetrating the abuse.

This proposed advocacy strategy focuses on awareness and education on teen dating violence in Wisconsin. While much of the population has a shared understanding of child abuse when the perpetrator is an adult, many have not considered abuse among other children. This proposal focuses on dating relationships among teens regardless of gender, race, and sexual orientation.

The idea of teen dating violence and its discussions about it can be difficult, triggering, and uncomfortable for youth, parents of victims, and perpetrators. The reality, however, is that these difficult conversations and awareness need to be had because teens are experiencing violence at alarming rates. “1 in 5 teens experience dating violence in Wisconsin. 1 in 4 teens in a relationship say they have been called names, harassed, or put down by their partner through mobile devices. 2 in 3 teens in an abusive relationship never told anyone about it. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth are more likely to experience physical and psychological abuse, sexual coercion, and cyberdating than their heterosexual peers. More than half of women and men who have been physically or sexually abused, or stalked by a dating partner, first experienced abuse between 11-24 years old.”

The policy change we are endorsing is Wisconsin's Senate Bill 986, which requires the Wisconsin educational committees to give age-appropriate guidance to students in grades six to eight and at least once in grades 9 to 12 in the counteraction of teen dating and sexual abuse violence.