1. What is Dating Violence?
PowerPoint Slideshow #3
What is Dating Violence?
A workshop for individuals with
disabilities and low English literacy

2. What are the Ground Rules?
Please turn off your cell-phone.
No one has to talk if they do not want to.
Be respectful. No laughing or put downs.
One person talks at a time.
No interruptions.
Are there any other ground rules that you would like to have here today?

3. 1. What healthy, unhealthy and abusive relationships are
Unit ?
What is Dating Violence?
What You Will Learn
1. What healthy, unhealthy and abusive relationships are
2. What the different kinds of abuse are
3. What the cycle of violence is
4. Why people might be abusive

4. Unhealthy Relationship
Healthy, Unhealthy and Abusive Relationships
Any relationship you have, be it with your family, friends, support staff, boy-friend or girl-friend can be good or bad.
This work-book talks about dating relationships that you have with your boy-friend or girl-friend.
Relationships can be healthy, unhealthy, or abusive.
Our goal is to always have a healthy relationship. Like healthy eating, a healthy relationship is good for you.
Healthy Relationship
Both partners have equal power and respect each other.
Unhealthy Relationship
A relationship that is not abusive, but they have red flags. They make you feel uncomfortable.
Abusive Relationship
A relationship where one person holds all the power and control over the other person.

5. Partner Power Respect Another word for boy-friend or girl-friend.
A person’s ability to have a say over what happens to them.
Respect
To show care or concern for others.
A healthy relationship is, a healthy relationship isn’t
Take a look at what words can be used to describe a healthy relationship.

6. Healthy Relationships
A healthy relationship makes you feel good.
A healthy relationship:
Has respect
Has honesty and trust
Is fair and equal
Has good communication
In an unhealthy relationship, some or all of these things could be missing.
When these things are missing the relationship may feel unfair or make you feel unhappy or unsafe.
A healthy relationship does not have any physical, emotional or sexual abuse.
Healthy relationships are built on respect.

7. Communication Communication is a big part of a healthy relationships.
In “What is a relationship?” we learned that communication can be broken down into 3 styles:
Passive
Aggressive
Assertive
Communication style fill in the blanks
Fill in the blanks to match the communication style with its description.
Communication style role play
Take a look at the different scenarios and figure out how you can respond in the 3 communication styles.

8. Unhealthy Relationships
Unhealthy relationships are relationships that are no longer healthy.
Both partners are not equal in an unhealthy relationship, one person has more power than the other.
In an unhealthy relationship you feel uncomfortable.
Signs of unhealthy relationships are:
Not communicating
Not being supportive
Intimidation
Jealousy
Disagreements that turn into fights
Watch the “Power” video.

9. Abusive Relationships
When there is no respect, a relationship can change from a healthy relationship to an unhealthy relationship to an abusive relationship.
In an abusive relationship one partner tries to have power and control over the other person.
Here are some “red flags” that some-thing could be wrong in a relationship:
Control
Dependence
Dis-respect
Aggression
Intimidation
Violence

10. When you rely on some-one else for help and support.
Dating Violence
Dating violence is a kind of domestic violence.
Domestic Violence
When some-one in a relationship tries to have power and control over the other person by
being abusive.
Domestic violence is the definition for any kind of violence that happens in a relationship that has intimacy, dependency or trust.
Intimacy
A strong emotional connection. Intimacy can be in a romantic or other close relationship.
Dependency
When you rely on some-one else for help
and support.

11. Domestic violence could happen between a couple who is dating, a parent and a child or a caregiver and an elderly person.
Dating violence is between two people who are in, or were in, a dating relationship.
It does not matter if the two people are the same sex or opposite sexes.
If the people in the relationship are dating then it could be dating violence.
Relationships in the media
Take a look the table on page 50. Use this table to look at relationships we see in the media and compare them to the 3 types of relationships.

12. Abuse Statistics Domestic and dating violence can happen to any-one.
To show how common domestic violence is here are some statistics:
1 in 5 teens who have been in a serious relationship said that they have been hit, slapped or pushed by a boy-friend or girl-friend.
1 in 4 woman who have been in a relationship say they have done more sexually than they wanted to because they were being pressured.
51% of women with disabilities are physically abused in their lifetime.
People with disabilities are about 2x more likely to report abuse than some-one with-out a disability.
60% of women with a disability experience some kind of abuse.

13. Abuse that happens between 2 people who are dating.
Types of Abuse
Dating violence is a kind of domestic violence.
Dating Violence
Abuse that happens between 2 people who
are dating.
The 2 people could be “just dating”, call them-selves “a couple” or even be “broken up” when the abuse happens.
There are many different kinds of abuse and not all them leave visible marks.
Here are some different kinds of abuse:
Emotional Abuse
Physical Abuse
Sexual Abuse
Medication Abuse
Financial Abuse
Cyber Abuse

14. Emotional Abuse
Emotional Abuse
When some-one tries to get power and control by attacking some-one’s self-esteem and self-worth.
There are lots of different kinds of emotional abuse.
Emotional abuse can look like:
Verbal Abuse
Isolation
Intimidation
Can you give some examples of these types of emotional abuse?
Emotional abuse can hurt just as much as, or more than, physical or sexual abuse.
Even if emotional abuse does not turn into physical abuse it is still is not good and will make you feel bad about your-self and unhappy.
Telling Rumours
Humiliation

15. Both men and women can be physically abusive in a relationship.
Physical Abuse
Physical Abuse
When some-one uses violence or says they will use violence to try to control, intimidate or punish some-one.
Can you think of some examples of physical abuse?
Both men and women can be physically abusive in a relationship.
Physical abuse happens because the abuser is trying to gain power and control over the other person.
The abuser thinks that it is ok to act this way and that what they are doing is ok.

16. When some-one uses sex as a weapon to gain power over another person.
Sexual Abuse
Sexual Abuse
When some-one uses sex as a weapon to gain power over another person.
Sexual abuse is:
Being violent and forcing some-one to have sex
Sexual activity with-out consent
Sexual comments or touching
Intimidating some-one into sex
Sexual abuse can happen in a relationship.
You must always consent to sexual activity.
Consent is very important. It means that both people give permission and want the sexual activity to happen.
Sexual abuse is not about sex. It is a way to get power and control over some-one by using sex as a weapon.

17. When medication is used as a way to try and control some-one.
Medication Abuse
Medication Abuse
When medication is used as a way to try and control some-one.
Medication abuse can be:
If they use medication to cause pain or to affect your abilities
If they do give not enough medication or none at all
If they do not fill a prescription for you
If they steal your medication
What can you do?
If you think that you could be at risk of medication abuse you can do these things to try and help protect your-self:
Make sure some-one out-side of the relationship that you trust knows about your medical condition and medications.
Ask them to visit from time to time to check in on you.

18. When money is used as a way to try to control some-one.
Financial Abuse
Financial Abuse
When money is used as a way to try to
control some-one.
Financial Abuse can be:
Forcing you to give over your money
Making sure you do not have access to financial resources
Making decisions about money without asking you
Building up debt on your credit card
What can you do?
Try to be aware of what is going on with your finances so you can tell if some-thing is wrong
Make sure that money being spent can be explained
If you are worried about what is happening with your money you could get a trustee to help keep your money safe

19. Cyber Abuse
Cyber Abuse
When you harass, stalk or abuse some-one by using a cell phone, s or social networking sites.
Cyber Abuse can be:
If they send s or text messages to harass, threaten or emotionally abuse you
They check in all the time by calling or texting you
If they tell mean gossip or rumours about you by text message or using a social networking site

20. Cyber Abuse
You need to think really hard before you send your own s or text messages because once they are sent you can-not control what happens to them.
You also need to be careful if you are online dating.
You may think that it is safer to date online because you are not meeting some-one face-to-face, but there are still ways that people can take advantage of you.
Do not send money to some-one you have only met online and do not give out your address
When you meet some-one for the first time meet them in a public place
Do not give out personal info too soon
Always listen to your gut, if it seems too good to be true, it usually is!
Talk about Cyber Abuse

21. The Cycle of Violence
In an abusive relationship there is a pattern with the abuse that is called the Cycle of Violence.
The cycle has 4 stages:
Tension Stage
Violent Episode
Honeymoon Stage
Calm Stage
Cycle of Violence fill-in-the blanks
In your workbook on page 63 match the stage in the cycle of violence to the diagram

22. The Tension Stage
In the tension stage there are a lot of insults, put downs, accusations and trying to control the other’s behaviour.
There may also be physical abuse.
The person being abused tries to calm their partner and is often “walking on eggshells” trying to keep them happy.
As the tension gets worse the person being abused feels like they cannot do any-thing to stop things from getting worse.

23. The Violent Episode The tension explodes into violence.
Picture shaking up a pop bottle.
It is a myth that the violent episode is cause by jealousy, anger, fear or losing control.
The abuser uses violence to gain power and control in the relationship.

24. The Honeymoon Stage
After the violence the abuser says they are sorry and promises not to do it again.
They might give gifts, pretend the violence was not a big deal, did not happen or even blame the victim.
Most of the time they are not doing these things because they are sorry, but instead to avoid the consequences of their abusive behaviour and getting caught.
The abuser usually tries to avoid taking responsibility for their actions.
They might say some-thing like “If you were not so use-less I would not have to hit you.”

25. The Calm Stage
The abusive partner will stop trying to be nice and things return to “normal”.
The abusive partner may act like the abuse never happened.
They may have kept some of their promises but the tension stage starts again, and the cycle continues.
If the cycle continues after a while the calm and honey-moon stages will become much shorter and may even stop completely.
Stage of the cycle of violence
Watch the “Cycle of Violence” video. Review and talk about the information from this section.

26. Why are Some People Abusive?
People are abusive because they choose to be.
They want to have power and control over some-one else.
There is no 1 answer to why some-one might be abusive.
There are lots of reasons out there that try to explain why some-one might be abusive.
None of them can help you point out who will or will not be abusive in a relationship.
No matter what excuses they make, violence is still their choice, and it is NEVER ok.
Education about healthy relationships can help people under-stand what is and is not ok in a relationship.

27. The Dating Violence Awareness Program was created by Vecova Research Services. This video was made possible with funding from the TELUS community fund and the Canadian Women’s Foundation.