At a glance
Dating Matters®: Strategies to Promote Healthy Teen Relationships is a comprehensive teen dating violence prevention model developed by CDC to prevent teen dating violence.
About Dating Matters
Dating Matters is evidence-based and includes prevention strategies for individuals, peers, families, schools, and neighborhoods. It focuses on teaching 11-14-year-olds healthy relationship skills before they start dating and reducing behaviors that increase the risk for dating violence, like substance abuse and sexual risk-taking.
Who it's for
Dating Matters was designed for local health departments with access to schools, community partners, state and local government, and other public health resources. However, other organizations can use the Dating Matters model to carry out comprehensive dating violence prevention efforts in their communities.
Why it's important
Dating Matters was developed between 2009 and 2011 in response to growing concern from the public and policymakers about the risks of teen dating violence. At that time, very few evidence-based primary prevention programs existed for teen dating violence, and none had been evaluated in high-risk urban environments.
CDC recognized that public health organizations, like local health departments, offer unique resources for delivering comprehensive, community-level prevention strategies due to their access to multiple sectors and populations.
As a result, CDC developed Dating Matters and sought to:
- Develop, implement, evaluate, and disseminate a multi-component prevention model to promote respectful, nonviolent dating relationships and decrease emotional, physical, and sexual dating violence among youth.
- Build local public health capacity to implement evidence-based and evidence-informed violence prevention strategies across the social ecology.
Primary components
Dating Matters includes seven primary components that work together to reinforce protective factors and reduce risk factors for teen dating violence at the individual, relationship, and community levels. These components also focus on preventing dating violence and promoting healthy relationships across the lifespan.
Youth programs
Youth programs provide middle school students—ages 11 to 14– with the knowledge and skills they need to have healthy, safe relationships before they start dating. Research shows that supporting healthy emotional development can prevent a variety of negative outcomes, including teen dating violence. The programs for sixth, seventh, and eighth graders are designed to be delivered in school by teachers or prevention educators. Learn more about the youth programs.
Parent programs
Parents have a crucial role to play in preventing dating violence. The Dating Matters parent programs provide parents of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders with skills that encourage positive interactions and communication with their children. The skills parents learn in these programs will help them talk to their kids about healthy, safe relationships. Learn more about the parent programs.
Training for educators
Teachers, coaches, school personnel, youth leaders, and other youth-serving professionals play an important role in preventing teen dating violence. The educator training is a free, one-hour, online training that helps educators understand the risk factors and warning signs of teen dating violence, as well as their role in promoting healthy relationships. Learn more about the training for educators.
Communications program
i2i®: What R U Looking 4 is Dating Matters’ youth-focused communications program. i2i is designed to reinforce messages learned in the youth programs using technology and language that is relevant for middle school aged youth. Learn more about the i2i Youth Communications Program.
Capacity assessment and planning tool
This online tool is designed to help local health departments or community-based organizations assess and improve their community’s capacity to implement a comprehensive teen dating violence prevention model, like Dating Matters. Learn more about the tool.
Guide to using indicator data
This guide helps local health departments identify, collect, and use data on school and community-level indicators of teen dating violence. Collecting indicator data is an important first step in establishing a community-based teen dating violence system to track changes in teen dating violence over time. Learn more about the Guide to Using Indicator Data.
Interactive guide to informing policy
This guide helps local health departments conduct an analysis of their policies related to teen dating violence and provides information to inform future policy activities. It also provides an overview of policy approaches to dating violence prevention, guidance for developing a policy plan, and tools to support policy development. Learn more about the Interactive Guide to Policy.
Implementation materials
The Dating Matters Toolkit was developed to give you everything you need to kick off and sustain the Dating Matters comprehensive teen dating violence prevention model in your community. In addition to all of the materials you need to implement each of Dating Matters' seven prevention components, the Toolkit also includes a Guide to Implementation, a Coaches' Playbook, and online training for youth and parent program facilitators. The toolkit also includes access to Team Up! for Dating Matters, a free, online community of practice for everyone involved in Dating Matters.