Posted by Elizabeth Schön Vainer:

Thanks to a generous grant from the Boston Jewish Community Women's Fund, a new TeenSafe project from Journey to Safety, the JF&CS domestic abuse program, aims to create a dialogue about teen dating abuse in the Jewish community. Through this initiative, Journey to Safety will engage both teens and adults in assessing, developing, and disseminating tools and resources that ultimately will make the community a healthier and safer place to grow up.

This initiative has two projects:

Provider Task Force: Journey to Safety will convene a working group that will meet three to four times over the course of the upcoming academic year. This working group will include Jewish youth advisors, educators, parents and others involved with Jewish teens through day schools, synagogues, afterschool/weekend high school programs, community centers, or social groups. The group will also include two members of the youth project. In addition to learning more about dating abuse, particularly in the Jewish community, this group will open a dialogue about how we might best equip adults and teens to recognize dating abuse and respond appropriately and effectively, as well as ways in which we can create a consistent response to dating abuse in the Jewish community throughout Greater Boston.

TeenSafe Project: The TeenSafe Project will bring together a group of 10 to 15 girls from across Greater Boston to develop peer leadership skills, learn about dating abuse (with an emphasis on additional cultural and religious observance factors for Jewish teens), and build a meaningful and productive team. The group will also develop and implement a project aimed at raising awareness about dating abuse and continuing the conversation in their youth groups, schools, community centers, and social groups.
Journey to Safety is currently seeking both adults and teens to be part of this program's pilot year. We are looking to build two groups that reflect the vast diversity of the Greater Boston Jewish community, and believe these groups will be strongest with many different voices and perspectives at the table.

If you would like more information or are interested in joining the provider working group or recommending a teen for the youth project, please contact Elizabeth Schön Vainer, Journey to Safety Program Director, at eschonvainer@jfcsboston.org or 781-647-JFCS (5327).

Elizabeth Schön Vainer is the program director of Journey to Safety, the JF&CS response to domestic abuse. Elizabeth is pleased to bring her many years of experience collaborating with multidisciplinary teams to investigate child and domestic abuse to Journey to Safety and JF&CS. She believes that only through collaborative efforts can we truly serve our clients. Elizabeth has a BSW from the University of Tel Aviv and a MS in Organization and Management from Antioch University.