January 27, 2022
In Right Relationship is a school-based campaign created for February’s National Teen Dating Violence Awareness & Prevention Month by the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual & Domestic Violence that engages middle school and high school-aged students in conversations about how to be in right relationship with yourself and one another.
In collaboration with Idaho young people and as in our role as a national technical assistance provider for the Department of Justice’s Office of Violence Against Women, the In Right Relationship campaign was created to support your efforts to prevent and intervene in teen abusive relationships and sexual assault. Here’s why: in the most recent 2019 Idaho Youth Risk Behavior Survey report, 33% of female students and 17% of male students were purposely controlled or emotionally hurt by someone they were dating or going out with during the past 12 months. Of significant concern, 23% of female students (more than twice the national average of 10%) experienced sexual dating violence during the past 12 months
National Teen Dating Violence Awareness & Prevention Month campaign materials developed by and featuring Idaho youth have been mailed to your program as well as all of Idaho middle schools and high schools. Along with the posters, health teachers were sent a sample packet of the pocket brochures and counselors were set the booklets for young people who have been abused or sexually assaulted and pocket brochure on the availability of free civil legal services for young people who have been sexually assaulted.
Encourage your local schools to display the posters and distribute the materials to your health teacher and/or counselor by February 11h and your school could win $500! Schools can email dalton@engagingvoices.org by end of day Monday, February 14th to let us know the posters are displayed and your school will be automatically eligible for one of four $500 random drawings.
Here are the exciting new educational and awareness materials that are en route to your organization! Please order more soon if you have upcoming presentations!
And please let us know of any activities you are doing to raise awareness, we can all continue to learn from one another.
We continue to be grateful for all of Idaho’s domestic and sexual violence programs who are engaging in prevention and response to teen dating violence – from the programs participating in the OVW Rural grant who provided community presentations to more than 1,2000 youth and parents in the last six months to the 165 young people who received direct services from programs.
We thank you for the difference you are making in the lives of young people’s health and well-being.
Kelly Miller, Dalton Tiegs, Kailey Carter-Zitterkopf, and Amy York
A few years ago, I was a part of a conference-planning committee. Our vision was to build an immersive experience for organizers and activists across the country to develop new skills and reignite their commitment to a world without violence, a world where everyone has what they need to thrive. We worked long hours planning, recruiting speakers and artists; and soliciting workshops in hopes of creating a meaningful experience for attendees.
On day 4 of planning, we hit a wall: our synergy was disrupted, we were no longer thinking big, the conference agenda was getting longer, and we became annoyed with each other. Up to this point, everyone on the planning committee was in alignment about a verdant, emergent new world. We were all in agreement that the current world was not a world that was just and equitable.
But that day, we had come to an impasse that created the perfect conditions for conflict and jeopardized our relationships. We had reverted to toxic dominant culture behaviors of competition, urgency, perfection, and scarcity.
I was upset about the structure and timing and blamed the facilitators. A fellow committee member was upset because they felt that the workload distribution was unfair and some labor was invisibilized. Yet another was upset with the host organization, naming that the contract and compensation did not match what was required for us to complete our tasks.
We were able to set aside our conflicts and move forward with our tasks to make sure the conference took place. We understood that we had to delay addressing the harm caused and repair our relationships after the conference.
During our reflection and relationship repair session, I reflected on how such revolutionary, kind, and compassionate people could be so petty, mean, and critical of each other. If we continued this way, it was abundantly clear that we would not make it far in our journey towards collective liberation.
How did we get here?
We were doing too much.
This became clear to me: we cannot end violence in our communities if we commit violence against our own bodies. We work long days maintaining the containers that we have to operate in AND address our communities’ needs by being resourceful and creative in conditions of scarcity.
This is violence.
That’s not to say that the occasional hustle and push of our bodies for liberation are never required. Unfortunately, emergent problems require emergent responses. But we cannot overextend and push past our limits daily. We will burn out.
Our culture places so much value on productivity that running on fumes starts to feel normal, and we can no longer distinguish ourselves from the work. Overextension is so normalized in the nonprofit industrial complex that the pressure to produce begins to affect our colleagues and co-conspirators.
We start to notice that we are becoming more irritable, resentful, and less patient with those we care about the most. We wake up in the morning tired. We work through lunch. We answer emails after hours. When on vacation, we feel guilty for not working. We begin to believe that we have to do everything ourselves because no one else can do it right within the time constraint. We even work when we are sick.
This is a delusion.
Somewhere along the way, we were made to believe that as caretakers of other people and our communities, we need to deprioritize our needs as if we were separate from the people we were trying to serve.
We are not.
We cannot continue this way.
We cannot contribute to the movement when our cup is empty. To end violence within our communities, we have to stop normalizing the violence we direct towards ourselves. You are deserving of rest, joy, and ease not because you finished a project but because it’s necessary for your wholeness. It’s required for your liberation. It is necessary for my liberation.
That email can wait. That meeting can be rescheduled.
Pause and receive your invitation to rest and be at ease.
D
Dalton Tiegs
dalton@engagingvoices.org
Three Things to reach out to me for:
Collaborating to Increase Access to Employment and Educational Opportunities for Survivors of Human Trafficking and Domestic and Sexual Violence| Thurs, January 27, 2022| 11:00am-12:30pm PT, 12:00-1:30pm MT
Presented by Futures Without Violence, survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking (DV, SA, HT) need access to education and job training programs that are grounded in trauma-informed practices. This webinar will focus on recognizing barriers to employment and education for survivors and strategies for building strong cross-sector collaborations between advocacy service providers and workforce development programs. This presentation is designed for service providers, anti-human trafficking collaborations and/or task force members. Register here!
Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month Challenge| February 1- February 28, 2022, All Day
Starting February 1, teens and youth are invited to submit any art form answering the question “What are the qualities of a healthy relationship?” Post your submission on social media by February 28 and tag @NativeLoveIs or email nativelove@niwrc.org with your submission for a chance to win a prize pack from NativeLove and NIWRC! Learn more here!
Rez Dating| Wed, February 16, 2022| 1:00-2:30 pm MT
In recognition of National Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month (TDVAM), the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center (NIWRC) is inviting you to join this webinar to learn about what “teen dating” violence is, why it happens and where to go for help if you or a friend are experiencing it. This discussion will include the intersection of intergenerational trauma and the modern occurrence of dating and intimate partner violence in Indian Country. Exploring healthy relationships and boundaries from an Indigenous perspective is also an important part of this presentation. The presenter, Lexie James, a young Hopi activist, will share her lived experiences and how she navigated them. Register Here!
Context is Key: Recognizing & Responding to Stalking (Recorded 8/5/21)
Stalking is criminal, traumatic, dangerous and often misunderstood. This webinar provides an introduction to the crime of stalking, focusing on the definition, prevalence, dynamics, behaviors and intersections with other crimes (including intimate partner violence). This recurring one-hour webinar is offered quarterly to provide foundational knowledge on the crime of stalking.
View recorded webinar here.
You can check out more archived trainings here.
Reminder that shipping for all material orders made by Programs on the Idaho Coalition website store is FREE of cost, please use the below coupon for all orders.
Visit the online store to view current Idaho Coalition materials available for order. For store questions, please contact Amy York.
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