Intimate Partner Violence Prevention
One Love is a non-profit organization founded in 2010 in memory of Yeardley Love, a senior at University of Virginia who was beaten to death by her ex-boyfriend on May 3, 2010. After this tragic incident, Yeardley Love’s mother, Sharon Love, founded One Love to help educate as many young people as possible about the warning signs of relationship abuse as well as to encourage others to be active bystanders when they witness signs of abuse, including highlighting the differences between healthy and unhealthy relationship behaviors. One Love aims to educate, empower and activate young people in a movement for change in their communities surrounding relationship violence.
One Love at Boston College
One Love has developed the Escalation workshop to help educate young people about relationship violence and facilitate a dialogue about the warning signs of abuse. Through a recent partnership between One Love and the BC Women’s Center, we are excited to bring this empowering and educational workshop to Boston College and provide our community members with this vital information about a growing problem on college campuses.
The Workshop
Escalation is a 1.5- to 2-hour workshop facilitated by two student presenters who have been trained by One Love staff members. The first portion of the training is the screening of a 40-minute film that depicts the trajectory of an abusive college relationship from beginning to end. Following the video, the facilitators will lead the participants in a discussion surrounding the warning signs depicted in the film as well as ways to intervene as bystanders if they suspect friends or loved ones might be in an abusive relationship. The workshop ends with a discussion of how the Boston College community can address the issue of intimate partner violence on our campus.
A note about the workshop: Though facilitators strive to ensure that Escalation is an overall empowering experience, by the nature of the subject matter, some students have found the video and subsequent discussion to be heavy and/or triggering. Facilitators will have a list of campus resources to hand out at the start of the workshop and will make themselves available to support participants once the workshop concludes. However, we ask that all interested groups keep the possibly triggering content of Escalation in mind when considering bringing this workshop to their members.