Women’s shelter adopts teen dating violence focus
The Medicine Hat Women’s Shelter Society marked February as Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month and spent time at schools and events around the city spreading the message.
“It actually originated in the U.S. and is declared there every year,” said community education and awareness coordinator Peggy Revell. “We thought about bringing it here to Medicine Hat and the surrounding area just to get the conversation going and encouraging parents to sit down with youth and talk about what healthy relationships are.
“Working with youth is a big part of this so they can understand what is and isn’t acceptable in a relationship.”
The shelter partnered with McMan and has been going to schools in the area to speak with young Hatters and to create friendship bracelets with them.
“Orange is the official colour of Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month and we’ve been doing orange bracelets all month,” said Revell. “We’ve gone to pretty much every middle school and high school in the area, we’ve been at youth centres and at other events for teens and tweens — we’ve been all over.
“We get the youth to create these bracelets because it’s fun and it’s a good way to get conversation going.”
The shelter had a table set up at the Family Leisure Centre on Family Day as another attempt to connect with Hat families.
“It’s important for parents to talk to their kids and for people to know that there’s resources out there,” said Revell.