The Center for Prevention of Abuse

HARTS: Helping All Relationships To be Safe

HARTS is a program for young women, designed to build self esteem and promote self-determination. HARTS covers characteristics of a healthy (equal) relationship versus an unhealthy relationship in order to equip young women to live violence free lifestyles. Those who participate in HARTS learn appropriate ways to communicate and stand up for their rights in a relationship. The girls also get actively involved in several community events and service projects, using the skills they have learned.

The three specific goals of the HARTS program are:

To offer girls the tools to form healthy relationships with personal boundaries

To increase knowledge of self empowerment and raise self-esteem

To offer an increased knowledge of the cycle of domestic violence, its effects on children and how to live a violence free lifestyle.

The HARTS program works with groups of 10 or fewer girls. These groups meet once a week for 8-12 weeks. The first week the young women take a pre-test on self-esteem and how it impacts their ability to recognize characteristics of healthy and unhealthy relationships. The last week the young women complete a post-test to measure the skills they learned. Members of these groups are determined by counselor referrals.

Some of the topics that are discussed thoroughly are:

How to set personal boundaries and how that relates to healthy and unhealthy relationships

Teen dating violence-the warning signs, the cycle of violence, and what to do if you are in a violent situation

How to respect the people around you and raise self-esteem

To learn more about HARTS: Helping All Relationships To be Safe, contact the Prevention Services Department at (309)691-0551.

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