Bristol County District Attorney’s Office Partnership with the KBEP

Bristol County District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn, III (center) with KBEP Education Staff, Jasmine Torres, Nwando Ofokansi and Deshaun Ferguson (left to right).

The Katie Brown Educational Program received funding from the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office in the amount of $15,000 this month. This contribution will enable KBEP to reach as many as 500 youth in Bristol County school districts and after-school venues during the 2016-2017 fiscal year. In 2016, the KBEP reached 3,694 students in Bristol County. Currently, we provide programming in 11 of the 20 cities and towns of Bristol County. The support of District Attorney Tom Quinn will allow us to continue expanding in these communities, especially into new grade levels of districts in which we already teach.

At the high school level, KBEP teaches at B.M.C. Durfee High School and Diman Regional Voc-Tech High School in Fall River, Taunton High School, and Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School. Support from the Bristol County DA’s Office will allow KBEP to reach even more students within those schools, imparting them with valuable skills to reduce the incidence of dating violence in Bristol County. Some of the skills we teach include:  managing jealousy, setting healthy expectations for their dating partners, the importance of trust, honesty, and respect, avoiding a system of power and control in their dating relationships.

In addition to the programming mentioned above, the KBEP will be launching the Prom Promise Initiative for the second year!  Nearly 1.5 million high school students nationwide experience physical abuse from a dating partner in a single year.  1 in 3 adolescents in the United States is a victim of physical, sexual, emotional or verbal abuse from a dating partner, a figure that far exceeds rates of other types of youth violence.

The goal of the Prom Promise is to bring awareness about the issue of teen dating violence during a time where the potential for dating violence is high. The Bristol County District Attorney’s Office is partnering with the KBEP to bring the Prom Promise Initiative to local high schools.

We are thankful to have the support of the Bristol County DA in continuing our mission to prevent dating violence.