This year, our TDVAM theme is “I Draw the Line…” This theme asks young people what relationship behaviors from friends/partners they draw the line at.

During April’s Child Abuse Prevention Month, we take special care to promote the ways in which people throughout our local communities can build supportive networks and positive experiences for children of all genders, identities, and ages. Even though we can’t protect children from every negative experience without suffocating them in well-intentioned wool, we can recognize the ways in which child mistreatment is preventable and how children can work on healing from it when it does occur.

Youth advocates teamed up with local high school teachers and students to make a TDVAM art show!

For Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month, youth advocates at Walnut Avenue connected with Santa Cruz High School art teachers and students to collaborate on an art project around healthy relationships. Trained youth advocates presented in several virtual classrooms around the county on the topic of healthy and unhealthy relationships.

From award-winning movies to popular chart-topping songs, the sentiment that “the kids are all right” has been a cliche repeated throughout generations. Teens have a perception placed on them that, because they’re young, life can’t be that bad. Just wait until you’re an adult. You have it so easy as a kid.

And yet, millions of children and teens in the United States alone experience dating violence at horrifying rates.