Love Bites? Last time I looked, this meant anything but Domestic Violence! I recall, (some 50 years ago) one of my mates one day rolling up to work with one of them planted firmly on his upper neck. He suffered ribald and rude comments for the better part of a week... Now, to the more serious issue of domestic violence: the statistics are... well, simply unbelievable: one in three females are suffering from Domestic Violence (DV) at some stage in their lives, one in 5 males... Unbelievable, so I jumped on Wikipedia, where it said just that. OK, perhaps a more sober place then: The Australian Bureau of Statistics. Officially, "no single agreed definition of Domestic Violence" it says. There they call it FDV (Family and Domestic Violence). The ABS statistics for FDV, say that in just one year (2015) FDV related assaults range from 177 victims per 100,000 population in the ACT to a staggering 1,668 victims per 100,000 in the Northern Territory. Click on the link to read the whole report. Warning: the homicide statistics relating to DV are no less scary. Based on this very uncomfortable reality, the summary which Anne provided me for this bulletin (printed below) is rather tame and benign. That does not mean it is less disturbing, just not as stark as the raw statistics are. Ed.
The Love Bites Reference Group began on the Gold Coast 2013 as a collaborative approach in managing the delivering of the program using a model to include best practice given the sensitive content.
Love Bites is a Respectful Relationships Program that aims to provide a safe space to discuss relationship violence and sexual assault for year 10 students. It aims to educate youth regarding domestic and family violence and sexual assault supporting young people to develop respectful relationships, engaging young people in conversations about gender equality, valuing difference and anti-bullying, clarifying rights as a human being; how to assure safety, access support and also be aware of the consequences for actions.For these reasons, the Love Bites program is offered as an interactive process, inviting students’ views and opinions in an open forum, increasing students awareness, providing information & resources not just for their immediate use but for their long term protection and assist them to have a voice regarding respectful changes in our world about these topics moving forward into our future.
We would really appreciate financial support, in any way, given there is no funding for the delivery of the program and our goal is to train more facilitators that are currently engaged in working with youth and be able to maintain and increase the education for young people to support their safety .