WINGS offers help with teen dating

The month of February is known as the month of love, mostly because of Valentine’s Day. It is also called Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month, and this year, Women In Need of God’s Shelter is focusing on ways to help teens recognize safety, respect and support before dating turns nasty.

Heather Mulls, executive director of the WINGS in Dublin, said they are offering training and outreach with the thought that, “Knowledge is power. Connection is safety. Prevention is possible.” WINGS believes its training and outreach/education and awareness programs are important to preventing abuse before it starts.

“Our focus in February is on teenagers from middle school, high school and some college,” Mullis said. “Basically, it is for young people who are getting into relationships, and we want to make sure they understand what is healthy, unhealthy and abusive.”

Mullis said the dating world for teenagers has changed. She admits it is tough to be teens.

“They don’t have experience with relationships,” she said. “There is social and peer pressure. They are more susceptible to what they see on TV and in movies and hear in songs that are not exactly promoting healthy relationships. They get into relationships and believe that because he is super jealous, that must mean he loves me or he wants to be with me all of the time so that must be true love. It’s not. It’s actually bordering on being abusive.”

Most teens do not go to the right place for advice. Some go to their friends or look it up on social media.

“It is hard for them to get help,” Mullis said. “We have to be a role model for what a healthy relationship is. We have to have conversations with them when we see two people yelling in a store parking lots. We have to talk about things we see on TV shows that are not healthy. We have to be able to guide them so that they have good information as to what is healthy and not healthy.” 

WINGS tries to take these conversations to the school systems in order to bring it to the students’ attention. They will also talk at churches or other organizations about this topic.

“Education is what it is all about,” Mullis said. “For us, it is all about prevention.

  “We really do not want to see these teenagers come in to our shelter or need a protective order. We have unfortunately seen a lot. We have talked with middle and high schoolers who have told us what is going on. We’ve had to help high schoolers get protective orders against their abuser.”

Anyone needing information about the presentations can call WINGS at (478) 272-5880. For those needing help, they can call the Help Line at (478) 272-8000. People can also email Mullis at hmullis@wingsdublin.org and find more information at www.wingsdublin.org

“We’ll talk to parents who are concerned with their child’s relationship,” Mullis said. 

“We’ll be glad to help them through it and confirm if it is unhealthy and if there are some services that are needed. Majority of parents do not realize that teen dating violence is an issue. I want to get that out there to let them know that this is going on and it’s going on in our school systems and they need to know what to look for. They can show that they are concerned by what they see and they just really want to protect their children.”