Ohio House, Senate OK teen dating violence prevention bill

After being approved 32-0 in the Ohio Senate, a bill requiring schools to incorporate dating violence prevention into their health curriculum appears poised to be signed into law by Gov. Ted Strickland (Source: “Ohio Senate approves dating-violence prevention bill,” Youngstown Vindicator, Dec. 16, 2009).

House Bill 19, which was previously approved in the House and was sponsored by Rep. Sandra Stabile Harwood, D-Niles, was named the Tina Croucher Act in memory of an 18-year-old from southwestern Ohio who was killed by her ex-boyfriend in 1992.

The law would require schools to teach children in grades seven through 12 about teen dating violence prevention, including information on recognizing signs of dating violence and characteristics of healthy relationships.

The promotion of school-based prevention measures is one of the major recommendations in the Ohio Family Violence Prevention Project’s White Paper on Family Violence (pdf, 36 pages), which was published in 2008. The Project is a collaborative effort between the Health Policy Institute of Ohio and The Ohio State University School of Public Health, through support from the HealthPath Foundation of Ohio.