By promoting a culture of respect and nonviolence with children and youth at an early age, child welfare professionals hope to prevent future violent behavior. The following domestic violence prevention and awareness programs and resources are geared toward working with children and youth.
Break the Cycle
Engages, educates, and empowers youth to build lives and communities free from domestic and dating violence by offering safety tools and resources.
Fostering Resilience, Respect & Healthy Growth in Childhood and Beyond
Kimball & Keene (2016)
Adult Children Exposed to Domestic Violence Leadership Forum & National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, VAWnet
Incorporates trauma-informed practice in order to develop strategies to foster resilience in children. This collection of resources emphasizes the importance developing healthy attitudes and behaviors as a means of reducing gender-based violence in future generations.
The Fourth R: Strategies for Healthy Youth Relationships
Develops and evaluates programs, resources, and training materials for professionals working with youth to target multiple forms of violence, including bullying, dating violence, peer violence, and group violence.
Lessons From Literature
Family Without Violence
Offers a classroom manual, handouts, and other free resources to help teachers incorporate violence prevention lessons into existing high school English curricula.
Middle School Matters
Futures Without Violence
Presents tools for educators to motivate middle school students and create a culture and school environment that helps utilize students' social and emotional development to maximize positive behavior and that supports bullying and violence prevention efforts.
Preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Veto Violence (2018)
Presents training materials on preventing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). The training reviews how ACEs affect children and families; what their long-term impacts are on health and well-being; and how to understand, recognize, and prevent them from happening in the first place.
Promising Futures: Best Practices for Serving Children, Youth, and Parents Experiencing Domestic Violence
Connects visitors with current research and interventions for children and youth experiencing domestic violence. This resource includes local and State examples, as well as a section on supporting parenting and how to keep children safe and healthy.
Strengthen Families, Prevent Violence: Public Education Campaign to Prevent Children's Exposure to Violence in Indian Country
Futures Without Violence
Works to create awareness around the issue of children's exposure to violence and to provide parents and caregivers with tools to promote healthy parenting and build strong families. The program educates and engages families on actionable steps they can take to promote resiliency and healing for children and promotes local adaptations so any Tribe may change photos and motifs to best reflect their culture and language.
Strong Families Respect Each Other: What Native Youth Need to Know About Domestic Violence (PDF - 2,857 KB)
National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center (2019)
Defines domestic violence and discusses how it is usually a combination of many different forms of controlling violence. The publication describes ways to recognize domestic violence, how to support victims of domestic violence, and discusses domestic violence in the context of culture and how Native youth can work to break the silence around violence in their communities.
STRYVE: Striving to Reduce Youth Violence Everywhere
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Veto Violence (2016)
Provides direction on how to prevent youth violence and includes online tools, resources, examples, and videos from communities on how they have implemented prevention strategies.