Teaching Relationship Skills

This article was referred by skrips of the 44s: Island of Support in the Teen Scene.

It’s a story about a group in Seattle called the Asian Counseling and Referral Service (ACRS) that teaches healthy dating and relationship skills to young women at the high school level.  Through the service, women learn how to stop abuse, how to respect themselves, and how to empower themselves.  Plus, they have lots of community support since they work with other young women.

I think it’s a great idea, and I think it’s excellent that they start this service at the high school level.  I especially like the idea because it focuses on an ethnic group whose needs tend to be different from the mainstream:

Dating boundaries can be blurry — and support elusive — for some young Asian Pacific American women, particularly daughters of immigrants. Those girls have been raised in cultural traditions where teen dating is considered taboo and discussion of it is forbidden.

“That means that those who do date are sneaking around behind their parents’ backs,” said Leana Pastores, an ACRS youth counselor who oversees the empowerment groups at Garfield and Franklin.

“They often don’t know what is expected of them, or by them. So it’s important that they have their peers to turn to for support because they definitely aren’t going to turn to their parents, and possibly not even their older siblings.”

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