Lutheran Settlement House STAR teens learn how to give peers support with dating violence

The training session began with games, jokes, and levity, but the purpose was deadly serious.

Nationwide, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, almost 19% of teens have experienced sexual or physical dating violence, about 50% have faced harassment or stalking, and as many as 65% report being psychologically abused.

» READ MORE: The epidemic of intimate partner violence is a hidden problem for college students

So, on a recent summer afternoon, amid peals of laughter, 13 teenagers met in the basement conference room of Lutheran Settlement House (LSH) in Fishtown to learn how to be a teen advocate for building healthy dating relationships.

They are members of the Students Talking About Relationships (STAR) program, LSH’s teen dating violence prevention program. They have spent the last six weeks understanding how to prevent dating violence and building their leadership skills in order to present a 10-week curriculum in as many as six local high schools this fall.

With one out of 12 high school students the victim of dating violence, most in the STAR group had heard of someone’s dating troubles. So when the STAR summer program facilitators, community engagement specialist Scott Sprunger and teen eating violence specialist Ella Wilkerson, asked what were signs of domestic violence, there were no shortage of answers.

“The person doesn’t want to see [their partner with] certain friends or wear certain clothes,” said Zoey Barber, 15.

While girls and women are particularly vulnerable to experiencing violence in relationships, Sir Sutton, 14, reminded the group that boys and men can also be victims of dating violence.

But it was Destiny Lee, 15, who told a story of a former friend from her middle school that most troubled the group.

Lee recalled the day her friend’s long-term boyfriend took her phone in anger and tossed it, shattering it against the wall. But there was more. The boyfriend continued to get held back in middle school so the pair could be together. There were hints of physical violence in the relationship. Lee also said that the pair are still together today.

Each added fact sent the other STAR participants gasping in disbelief.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, teen dating violence involves not just physical violence, such as engaging in nonconsensual sex acts, but also psychological aggression, such as threats, insults, and technological bullying such as monitoring private online activity without permission or sharing intimate photos without consent.

Lutheran Settlement House has been offering the STAR program for more than 10 years. Last year, the project team received a $750,000 Violence Intervention and Prevention Competitive Grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency to implement the program in 10 schools across Philadelphia over a period of 2½ years and to pay stipends to the teen advocates.

Before the day’s classwork started, there was an emotional check-in for the participants and facilitators. On a scale of one to five, with five being the happiest, each person was to express feelings at the moment.

Wilkerson, 22, a former STAR participant and now LSH employee, reported she was a five. But it wasn’t always the case that she felt so happy.

When Wilkerson was in fourth grade, her cousin and the cousin’s boyfriend moved in with Wilkerson, her father, and the cousin’s mother. Chaos ensued as Wilkerson got a firsthand view of domestic violence and all its forms — emotional, verbal, and physical. “The physical was usually alcohol-fueled,” Wilkerson recalled, adding that the reciprocal arguing and fighting were nonstop for a year.

“Nobody could make it stop,” Wilkerson recalled.

Wilkerson didn’t want to call the police, because this was 2012, the year Trayvon Martin was killed, and she thought police would make it worse, especially for her cousin and the cousin’s boyfriend. She also wanted to keep her father, who is disabled, safe from harm.

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After a year, her cousin and the cousin’s boyfriend left, but the trauma left its mark.

It also means that Wilkerson has a deep understanding of how relationship violence can traumatize an entire family. Every year, almost 16 million children are exposed to intimate-partner violence. Researchers connect teen dating violence with such issues as poor academic performance, chronic school absenteeism, binge eating, drug abuse, suicide attempts, and entering violent adult relationships.

Wilkerson said she believes the STAR program is essential because it provides youth with a different perspective. “It shows them a different way of being. A person may think [domestic violence] is normal, but it isn’t normal.”

It also provides the advocates with resources to help their peers, such as a number to call for support.

“I wish I had known about a hotline. I could have talked to someone,” Wilkerson said.

”I was just looking for a job, I needed money. I had no idea what STAR was,” admitted Jahki Walker, 17. But as the summer coursework went on, he said he became “locked in and engaged about helping people.” The STAR participants have had workshops on healthy relationships, teen dating violence, how to support friends who are in an abusive relationship, and healthy communications.

This is their last week of class. The next step will be going into the schools, presenting workshops before their peers throughout the academic year.

“You are making yourself visible in your school or community. Sometimes by speaking up you are creating that welcoming space,” said Sprunger.

If you are in the Philadelphia region and experiencing intimate partner violence or feel at risk of harming your partner, call the Philadelphia Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-866-723-3014. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233.