Vice president of Dating Abuse Stops Here Wendy Claunch and Red Flag Campaign representative Heather Sarmiento led a presentation for seniors last Tuesday to raise awareness about the warning signs and effects of dating abuse.
“I thought any opportunity to talk about healthy relationships would be great,” director of student services, Cindy Blakeley said.
“Real life stories are a lot more moving and make more of an impression.”
Claunch led an information session about the warning signs of an abusive relationship and the lethal warning signs.
The DASH segment was followed by a brief presentation by Sarmiento to promote the “bystander strategy” meaning that people need to say something when they see the warning signs, the red flags, of abusive relationships.
“The bystander has a bigger role to play in fault,” Blakeley said, while recognizing that “it is difficult to figure out how to be a friend to a person in an abusive relationship.”
Senior Kayla Marsh explained that she has been a witness to dating abuse and, rather than do nothing, she spoke out about the situation.
“I have actually witnessed dating abuse in school, physical abuse, and it was really scary,” Marsh said.
“I realized how unhealthy and obsessive relationships can get. I talked to the security guards about it and wrote a statement of what I saw.”
Other students admitted to having seen minor signs of dating abuse but did not think that it was a serious issue at Marshall.
“Everyone’s seen it but it’s not an overall problem,” senior Tyler Snook said.
“I have never seen a serious incident of dating abuse. I have seen jokes played but they aren’t things I would consider to be dating abuse,” senior Brendan Fogarty said.
On the other hand, senior Asia Amin thinks that dating abuse is a serious problem and needs to be addressed.
“I do think it’s a problem in high school because people have a lot of insecurities,” Amin said.
Despite the cognizance that dating abuse is an issue for high school relationships, some students were unhappy with the presentation.
“It seemed unrealistic and distant to our reality here,” Snook said.
Amin had a more specific critique of the presentation, citing its weakness as the value of the actual information presented.
“I think it was a good topic, but it wasn’t presented in the right way,” she said.
“They told us to be aware of an abusive relationship but not what to do if we were in one.”