Rules in Relationships was created in response to the growing concerns of teenage relationship abuse directed toward women and young girls. The course is an adolescent perpetrator prevention program, consisting of 8 modules with activities and discussions designed to equip adolescent males with the knowledge and skills to abstain from relationship abuse. The course is designed to support the development of healthy, respectful, egalitarian gender relationships and identities to help reduce the risk of violence in the short term, and to provide a strong foundation for healthy gender relationships into adulthood.
The first four modules are the knowledge-based interventions consisting of the following themes:
Module 1 – Myths of Masculinity
Module 2 – Attitudes toward Women
Module 3 – Love means Respect
Module 4 – Equality and Gender
Module 5 – Space (Separating oneself away from the situation when triggered, provoked or tempted.)
Module 6 – Think (Time out to think, relax and calm down)
Module 7 – Ownership (Taking ownership and responsibility of behavior)
Module 8 – Pledge (Making a pledge to abstain from violence toward women)
“Society has seldom considered the vicarious effects of domestic violence between partners on the lives of children”
