Advice on Talking To Kids About Violence In Spanish.

What do you say to a 16-year-old who is being bullied and controlled by her boyfriend? Will violent video games affect your child’s behavior? How do you break a pattern of abuse that has affected your family for generations?What are your sons thinking about what it means to be a man? A powerful new online publication from the Family Violence Prevention Fund, with support from the Avon Foundation and the Wireless Foundation, answers those and other provocative questions.

CONNECT: An E-Magazine for Parents gives parents and caregivers practical advice on how to talk to kids about respecting women and girls and cultivating healthy relationships. The miniwebsite offers regular features including an advice column by Wendy Lichtman, a mother of two and writer for several national magazines and newspapers, articles on hot topics such as violent video games, advice on taking advantage of teachable moments, and more. questions-and-answers with authors and experts, and interviews with parents, teens, and women who grew up in violent homes. The launch issue’s website also has supplements including a quiz, advice on taking advantage of teachable moments, and more. CONNECT is available in Spanish and English at http://www.connect-endabuse.org and http://www.avonfoundation.org, and readers are encouraged to send in their questions or concerns for a reply from the advice columnist.

To publicize this online initiative, Avon Products, Inc. began distributing a printed English version of CONNECT to its nearly 500,000 US independent Sales Representatives in May, and will continue to circulate the piece throughout the summer driving even more people to the site. Also, CONNECT is also posted on www.avonfoundation.org and has been promoted through a nationwide viral email campaign.

The spring/summer issue of CONNECT is the first in a series of e-magazines that will provide a compendium of advice to help parents teach children that violence against women is wrong. The Avon Foundation will also produce another issue in the fall. Together, they will give parents a wealth of advice on how to broach this difficult subject with children.

“Talking to children about violence against women is daunting for many parents,” said Family Violence Prevention Fund President Esta Soler. “Until now, there has been little help and support for those who want to teach their sons to reject abuse and help their daughters avoid becoming victims of dating, domestic or sexual violence. The Avon Foundation and the Wireless Foundation have done a tremendous service by supporting production of these mini-magazines and website. CONNECT will help millions of parents talk to their kids about violence.”

“We are proud to partner with the Family Violence Prevention Fund and the Wireless Foundation in this work,” said Avon Foundation President Kathleen Walas. “The Avon Foundation has for 50 years been committed to empowering women, and through our new Speak Out Against Domestic Violence initiative our goal is to help break the cycle of domestic violence. CONNECT is one of the first projects of our Speak Out program, and it is a symbol of our hope that the next generation can avoid the violence.”

“The Wireless Foundation has a deep commitment to raising awareness about domestic violence and helping victims,” said Wireless Foundation Executive Director David S. Diggs. “We have recycled millions of wireless phones and used the proceeds to support leading domestic violence agencies, and refurbished countless others that are lifelines for victims of abuse facing emergencies. Supporting the CONNECT mini-magazine and website is one more way the wireless industry is helping parents and kids communicate – in this case about the importance of preventing domestic violence before it even begins.”

Violence is a pervasive problem in the U.S. Nearly one-third of American women (31 percent) report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives, according to a 1998 Commonwealth Fund survey. One in five female public high school students in Massachusetts report experiencing physical and/or sexual violence from a dating partner, a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found.

For more information on the mission and programs of the Avon Foundation, visit http://www.avonfoundation.org. More information on the Wireless Foundation is available at http://www.wirelessfoundation.org. More information on the Family Violence Prevention Fund is available at http://www.endabuse.org.