Travis County Commissioners Court
February 2, 2010,
Item 3
Number 3 a, approve proclamation designating the month of February, 2010, as national teen dating violence awareness and prevention month in Travis County.
and two, I mean 3 b, recognize the two winning public service announce mentscreated by local teens from the recent Austin film festival and Travis County sheriffs office competition.
should I read the proclamation.
>> yes.
>> okay.
it eds roo, whereas dating domestic and sexual violence affect individuals regardless of their age and teens and young women are especially vulnerable, whereas approximately one in three add lessen girls in the united states is a victim of physical, emotional or verbal abuse from a dating partner, a figure that far exceeds victimization for other types of violence' I affecting youth, whereas nation wide one in ten high school students has been hit, slapped or physically hurt on purpose by a boyfriend or girlfriend, whereas more than one in fourteen agers has a relationship where a partner is verbally abusive, whereas 20 percent of teen girls exposed to physical dating violence did not attend school because the girls felt unsafe at school or on the way the or from school on one or more occasions in a 30-day period, whereas violent relationships in add lessons can have serious ramifications for victims by putting the victims at a high risk for substance abuse, eating disorders, risky sexual behavior, suicide and adult revictimization, whereas teen dating abuse most often takes place in the home of one of the partners, whereas the severity of violence among intimate partners has been shown to be great in the cases where pattern of violence has been established in add adolescents, whereas primary presence programs are a key to addressing teen dating violence and successful community examples include education, community outretch and social marketing campaigns, that also understand cultural appropriateness of programs.
whereas skilled intervention programs are necessary for youth victims and abusers, and I wondered if we would get to that and for a while there, whereas the establishment of national teen dating violence awareness and prevention month will benefit schools, communities and families regardless of socio economic status, race or sex, now therefore the Travis County Commissioners court, one, designates the month of February 2010, as national teen dating violence awareness and prevention month.
two, supports communities to empower teens to develop healthier relationships, and three, call upon the citizens of Travis County, including youth and parents, schools, law force.
and interested groups, to observe national teen violence dating violence awareness prevention month with appropriate activities that promote awareness and prevention of the crime of teen dating violence in their communities.
i move approval.
>> second.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
thank you for your support.
i am the community liaison with the Travis County sheriffs office and to my right is my director, kelly page of the community services and outreach unit.
so thank you again.
we are here to recognize February as teen dating violence awareness and prevention month.
in the past our family violence unit within the sheriff's office had approached at the time kelly and the community services outreach that there was a need to focus on education and presence with youth, with teens.
they saw this as a growing epidemic.
in 2006 the sheriffs office launched that initiative and within that campaign, we deal with public education, presentations, we also had in the past partner with safe place to do training in the community.
and a multitude of different outreach that we do.
one of them, as you had mentioned, judge Biscoe, was the psa competition that we do.
a its a public service announcement that is open to all Travis County high school students to submit a 30-second psa on the subject matter of teen dating violence.
the film festival has been a great supporter and partner of ours in the past four years.
we just had our fourth annual competition.
the purpose of the competition and outreach is to promote healthy relationships with teens rather than addressing always the negative and just feeding statistics to them.
we'd like to show them a different way to change those risk behaviors and attitudes towards teen dating violence.
so with your approval we'd like to lo show those films.
the two winning films we have today are from, the runner up film is titled protect yourself, it's from marry basic, a high school students at wesley.
then we had two really great guys, two partners from Austin high school with the winning film, recognize the signs, which is sean hahn and lehman December.
-- dez.
if we could queue media, please.
thank you.
>> learn to recognize the signs of an abusive relationship and don't wait until it's too late.
talk to them now because chances are that person feels more alone than they have ever felt before..
.
.
>> those are excellent.
>> thank you.
just to clar the competition, this past one addressed substance abuse.
i thought we were going to be seeing the teen dating violence.
that was the winner of the substance abuse piece, which unfortunately, they are related issues.
thank you for letting us share that today.
thank you.
>> I spent a lot of my time in the county attorney's office doing family violence.
to thank the sheriff's office for all they are doing.
we have made tremendous strides in law enforcement in the judiciary.
this is an example of work that we can do to, we have so much work to be done in educating the community.
the criminal nature of family violence is understood by professionals but there is so much misconception about family violence and you want to applaud you all for doing this.
>> thank you.
we have a very strong family violence unit.
>> very strong of but love does not hurt.
love doesn't hurt.
>> thank you for saying that.
one quick plug too, the fact that this type of competition and some of the work that we do in the schools, getting the students, the peers to educate themselves is what is most effective.
thank you for recognizing that.
>> very.
>> thank you.
>> all in favor.
that passes by unanimous vote.
thank you very much.
>> thank you, Commissioner.
>> keep up the good work.
>> thank you.
we have a proclamation to give you.
this was a whole lot longer than those films, wasn't it?
>> yes, sir.
>> thank you.
>> thank you very much.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 2:15 PM
