Vote for the first video game that helps teach positive, protective relationship skills! Our friends at the Start Strong Rhode Island program have held 30 play testing sessions with over 300 students and want to expand it to YOUR SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY! Tell your friends to vote every day this month so that Start Strong Rhode Island can beat out hundreds of other programs for a $250,000 grant from Pepsi’s Refresh Everything Competition. When you arrive at the Start Strong Rhode Island Game Changers page, wait a few seconds and scroll down the page to the the white “Vote for This Idea” button. You’ll be able to cast your vote for the Game Changers by email or Facebook.
Note: Pepsi will not use your information for marketing purposes! After you vote, PEPSI will give you the option to share your vote on Facebook or Twitter! Sharing your vote on Facebook and Twitter is the best way to get out the vote!

Support the first video game that helps teach positive, protective relationship skills. Our friends at the Start Strong Rhode Island program have held 30 play testing sessions with over 300 students and want to expand it to YOUR SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY! Vote on March 1 and EVERY DAY IN MARCH so that Start Strong Rhode Island can beat out hundreds of other programs for a $250,000 grant from Pepsi’s Refresh Everything Competition. When you arrive at the Start Strong Rhode Island Game Changers page, click the white “Vote for This Idea” button. You’ll be able to cast your vote for the Game Changers by email or Facebook.
Note: Pepsi will not use your information for marketing purposes! After you vote, PEPSI will give you the option to share your vote on Facebook or Twitter! Sharing your vote on Facebook and Twitter is the best way to get out the vote!

Calling all Latina girls aged 12-17. Take this survey about your dreams and aspirations to help a young woman start a new mentoring program!

If you are between the ages of 13 and 18, design a cool e-card with a message to prevent teen dating violence and win a trip to the NFL PLAYERS Gala in Washington DC! If you win first prize, you’ll walk the red carpet at the event and go backstage to chat and take photos with your favorite NFL stars. Four runners-up will get autographed NFL memorabilia, like a helmet or jersey. Ten honorable mention award winners receive That’s Not Cool t-shirts and NFLPA hats. These e-cards (Callout Cards) are part of the That’s Not Cool public service advertising campaign created to help teens learn what digital abuse is and how to stop it. Enter the contest by March 15th! Check out the website to send a Callout Card to your friends and dating partner today!

Listen to what teens and researchers think about how to stop teen dating violence. Texas teen Mikala Jennings spoke about being one of three DoSomething.org and Liz Claiborne Fight Teen Dating Abuse Grant Winners, and University of Texas professor Beverly M. Black and Wayne State University Professor Arlene Weisz discussed the book they co-wrote Programs to Reduce Teen Dating Violence and Sexual Assault: Perspectives on What Works. I spoke about the Start Strong initiative. Our host was the wonderful Joy Keys, whose live Internet talk-radio show focuses on providing people with tools to enrich and advance their lives mentally, physically and emotionally.

At 11 a.m. today (Sat Feb 13), I will be speaking about the Start Strong Bronx program on the “Saturday Mornings with Joy Keys. Go To: www.blogtalkradio.com/joykeys to listen from your computer. Call in with questions to 646-929-0368.
Special Guest: Three DoSomething.org and Liz Claiborne Fight Teen Dating Abuse Grant Winners. Alyssa Korman, Mikala Jennings and Cheyenne Ruiz. Check out www.dosomething.org and www.loveisnotabuse.org

Special Guest: Beverly M. Black is a professor in the School of Social work at the University of Texas at Arlington. Dr. Black has published numerous articles related to relationship violence and violence prevention, including the book Programs to Reduce Teen Dating Violence and Sexual Assault: Perspectives on What Work.

Special Guest: Arlene Weisz, Associate Professor, has been on the faculty of the School of Social Work at Wayne State University since 1995, where she serves as director of the doctoral program. Dr. Weisz co-authored the book Programs to Reduce Teen Dating Violence and Sexual Assault: Perspectives on What Work.

Special Guest: Christina Alex is a licensed master’s level social worker. She directs Start Strong Bronx www.startstrongbronx.org, one of 11 programs across the country funded by an $18 million Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant to promote healthy relationships among middle school students and the adults who influence them.
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“Saturday Mornings with Joy Keys” is an interactive, live Internet talk-radio show that focuses on providing people with tools to enrich and advance their lives mentally, physically and emotionally.

To really show people how much you love them this Valentine’s Day, help save the environment, starting with your school! HP and Dosomething.org are joining forces to sponsor the Increase Your Green contest!! Winning schools get up to $5,000 in environmental funding plus very cool HP computers! So sign up by Monday and get a starter kit with recycled pens stickers and action guides. Projects are due April 22nd!

In honor of the month of love, Scientific American Mind magazine features a special section on how to fall in love…and not fall out! Professor Robert Epstein teaches a class at the UCLA San Diego on the science of relationships and let his lucky students be the guinea pigs. Eight students paired up randomly and rated how much they liked, loved or felt close to their partner. Then the Prof asked each “couple” to look deep into the other’s eyes. After two minutes of Soul Gazing, here’s what happened: 7% reported an increase in loving (one point added for one person in one couple); 11% liked each other more; and 45% felt closer. Then he had the whole class pair up to try it, and 89% of the students said they felt more intimate with each other. Whew!! That’s just one of the exercises he suggests. Maybe this love thing isn’t so hard after all!

Another reason to help your friends escape a dating partner who isn’t treating them well is that the consequences could be lifelong. New research found that some teens and young women get pregnant without meaning to because their male partners are physically and sexually violent with them and messing with their birth control as another way to keep them under control. The study, in the January issue of the journal Contraception, discovered that these young women have twice the risk of unintended pregnancy. About 1,300 women aged 16 to 29 at five health clinics in Northern California were surveyed, and 15% said their partner messed with their birth control. More than half said their partners were physically or sexually violent, and more than one third of those who said their partners were violent said that their partners tried to persuade them into getting pregnant or sabotaged their birth control, according to the researchers. Do you think this is a common problem? Do you know anyone this has happened to? What would you say to a friend who was in trouble like this?

Have you ever wanted to strangle the buffoon bellowing on his cell phone in the middle of a peaceful morning in your favorite Starbucks? Well, the flame-haired and very witty syndicated advice columnist Amy Alkon does the next best thing. She calls him at home – after all, everyone within a 10-mile radius heard his personal information – and tells him what it’s like on the receiving end of his riveting rant. That’s just one of the hilarious tactics (and there are many more, including how to deal with telemarketers, car thieves and the Bank of America’s lack of security measures which led to her identity theft) that Amy used in her “battle to beat some manners into impolite society,” as she so aptly puts it on the cover of her book, I See Rude People. *For more on manners, see one of my favorite movies of all time, Jerry Maguire. Do you think technology has made us more self-centered? Do you have a story about trying to make the world more civilized?