On Feb 6, 2018 MSMS students and faculty attended a seminar on modern-day dating violence at the Family Resource Center in honor of Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month. The faculty of the Family Resource Center in Columbus showed a PowerPoint presentation, engaged the students in a game and encouraged them to make posters to creatively broadcast how we should prioritize peace over violence.

Everyone that attended the program can confidently say that they now have the ability to identify warning signs of abuse.

The event was sponsored by Ms. LaToya Bledsoe, who “actually knew about the event from taking a group of students on last year to the same seminar; however, the Family Resource Center director Mrs. Diane Sherrod reached out to Mr. Rick Smith, Director for Student Affairs, wanting to do more in reaching our young people and involving MSMS in that partnership.”

Lane Hughes attended the seminar and says the following:
“I learned that certain aspects of other people’s relationships that I had considered normal were not normal and were possible signs of abuse. Speaking of signs, we came up with a sign to represent the need for peace in a relationship as opposed to abuse.”

The students participated in a game of Kahoot to practice learning the techniques of recognizing potential abuse in romantic relationships.

This was Theresa Ho’s, an MSMS junior, favorite part of the presentation.

“My favorite part of the seminar was when we played kahoot. I learned that there are different ways to an abusive relationship whether that is manipulation or being controlling” says Ho.

Everyone was extremely thankful for Bledsoe putting together this event.

Bledsoe is “an advocate for service and giving back. I want to be able to give students an opportunity to attend programs such as this one as well as volunteer in the community.”

This presentation was extremely beneficial to all who attended and many took valuable life lessons away from the event.