Feb. 9, 2026
By Alessandra Ricra
Staff Writer
February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month, a nationwide effort to raise awareness about teen dating abuse and encourage healthy relationships.
To mark this month, the 20 junior teen advocates in LHS’ PowerBack Program are leading a schoolwide awareness campaign that includes informational posters, daily morning announcements and educational social media posts on the PowerBack Instagram account (@powerbacknj).
PowerBack, which conducts outreach to educate high school students about teen dating abuse, operates through A Partnership for Change, a New Jersey nonprofit organization focused on ending dating violence. Since 2009, the program has certified 622 teen advocates across the state.
PowerBack representative Jessica Gompertz said she hopes PowerBack’s efforts throughout the month encourage more students to talk about dating abuse.
“The more conversations that occur about teen dating violence and abuse and the more people recognize what abuse looks like in teenage relationships, the more people [will] feel comfortable to advocate for themselves or a friend,” Gompertz said.
She said many teens are not taught enough about dating violence and how to identify warning signs, which include controlling behaviors, excessive jealousy and threatening or causing physical violence.
“[Dating abuse] is not really talked about at a young age because it’s an uncomfortable conversation,” Gompertz said. “A lot of kids grow up not having any idea that the behaviors are wrong.”
According to Love is Respect, a project of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, one in three American teens experienced some form of violence from a dating partner, and one in 10 high school students reported having experienced deliberate physical harm by someone they were dating.
As part of PowerBack’s awareness campaign, junior teen advocate Henry Keefe worked with his fellow junior teen advocates, Anthony Andrews and Gabriel Angelli, on Jan. 13 to create an informational poster that is being displayed on campus.
“[The poster] went over some basic green flags like communication, respect and love, and some basic red flags like being too possessive, ignorant towards boundaries and disrespectful,” Keefe said.
He said he was inspired to become a teen advocate after attending an assembly about dating abuse, which was led by the PowerBack staff in October 2025.
“The idea of people getting together to acknowledge abusive behaviors made me want to explore the signs of how to prevent that for my friends,” Keefe said.
Junior Mariam Selim, who is also a teen advocate, said the training she received from PowerBack has contributed to her understanding of dating violence and its effects on teens.
“A lot of kids grow up not having any idea that the behaviors are wrong.”
“I really overlooked teen dating violence,” Selim said. “I thought that it was… more of a grown-up issue, but the fact that so many teens and young adults go through dating violence really opened my eyes.”
Selim said one of the most valuable skills she has learned through PowerBack is how to create a personalized safety plan, which includes practical strategies that help victims of domestic violence protect themselves. It can include identifying safe spaces to go, trusted people to contact and ways to respond if a situation escalates.
“I wish PowerBack could be offered to every student so everyone could know how to [make a] safety plan because it is so important,” Selim said. “Knowing how to safety plan and get out of a dangerous relationship or knowing how to help somebody through one can save a life.”
