This book reflects the generosity of many people who shared the stories of their experiences so that others might learn from them. Teens and parents participated in hours of interviews as they described relationship violence and how it affected them and their families. We are grateful they trusted us with the task of telling their stories. To respect their privacy, we will not name them individually, but we acknowledge our appreciation for their important contribution to this project.
We thank the following people for their assistance and support. The Youth Violence Prevention team members at Peace Over Violence (Lili Herrera, Trina Greene, Fabiola Monteil, Karen Lopez, and Emily Austin) were fantastic because of their wealth of knowledge about teens and violence prevention, and their enthusiasm in helping us. Lawyer Emily Austin, director of Policy and Evaluation at Peace Over Violence, made a major contribution to this project by writing two chapters on getting help from schools and the legal system. We really appreciate her quiet competence and excellent ability to articulate clearly.
Hazelden is a wonderful organization, providing valuable information on all sorts of issues. Marty Harding picked up our original book for parents and saw that an updated version would fit well with Hazelden’s mission to help and encourage individuals, families, and communities to recover from addiction and violence. Thanks to Marty, we have had the pleasure of working with Peter Schletty as he moved this project along from beginning to end. He has been encouraging, responsive, and patient. April Ebb has made the production of the book painless for us, and we appreciate how she and her team have improved each draft. We are honored to be able to work with everyone at Hazelden. Thank you all.
Thank you to Linda Garnets and Ellen Ledley for their tireless support and love. Thank you, Jedd Mellin, for your very intelligent review of an early draft to make sure we are in sync with teen culture. And thank you to all of our children and grandchildren who, as teenagers, challenged us and taught us to be better parents.
We appreciate our movement and all of the people who have worked to end sexual and domestic violence. We have always sustained our hope and faith that young people will change the norms to prevent violence, so that future generations will have relationships free of violence and abuse.