Part II: Healthy Teen Dating

Obstacles why he/she won’t leave the relationship

·         Fear of the abuser

·         Language barrier

·         Embarrassment

·         Low self esteem

·         Hoping abuser will change

·         Believing abuse is normal

·         Fear of abuser’s friend/family

·         Culture/religious reasons

·         Lack of money

·         Fear of being outed (gay relationship)

·         Immigration status

·         Pregnancy

·         Distrust of police

·         Nowhere to go

·         Peer pressure

·         Puppy love phenomena (adults don’t take teen romance seriously)

·         Reluctance to report abuser

Speak up. Speak out. Speak NOW!

24 Hour HOTLINES

(671) 477-5552

National Dating Abuse Hotline:  1-866-331-9474

National Domestic Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE 

Healthy Teen Dating

Healthy dating relationships should start with the same things that healthy friendships start with: good communication, honesty, respect and trust. Dating relationships are a little different because they may include physical ways of showing you care, like hugging, kissing, or holding hands. You may find yourself wanting to spend all of your time with your crush, but it is important to spend some time apart, too. This will let you have a healthy relationship with your crush and with your friends and family at the same time.  Healthy relationships make you feel good about who YOU are and SAFE with the other person. Feel good about yourself and get to know what makes you happy. The more you love yourself, the easier it will be to find healthy relationships.

Types of Abuse

·         Physical: Any forceful act that harms a person’s body.

·         Sexual: To make another person do an unwanted sexual act by force or threat.

·         Verbal & Emotional:  Anything said or done that causes fear, lower self-esteem or                                manipulates you to control your behavior.

Cycles of Abuse

·         Tension building: growing tension and anger-like a time bomb.

·         Explosion: violence, sexual assault, physical abuse.

·         Honeymoon: abuser seems sorry, promise to never let it happen again, offers gifts.

Love is NOT Abuse 

What is AIDS?

A- Acquired: AIDS is not something you inherit from your parents. You get AIDS after birth.

I– Immune: Your body’s immune system includes all the organs and cells that work to fight off infection or disease.

D– Deficiency: You get AIDS when your immune system is low, or isn’t working the way it should.

S– Syndrome: A syndrome is a collection of symptoms and signs of disease. AIDS is a syndrome, rather than a single disease, because it is a different kind of illness with a complications and symptoms.


AIDS have one or more specific opportunistic infections, certain cancers, or a very low number of CD4 cells. If you have AIDS, you will need medical help and treatment to prevent death.

Source from National HIV/AIDS Strategy Aids.gov

Guam’s AIDS hotline is (671) 734-AIDS (2437) for more information and assistance.

Healthy Relationships: THINK SMART, BE SMART, YOUth SMART.

Common ways HIV is transferred:

• Having intimate physical contact with someone who is HIV positive.
• Sharing needles or injection with users who are HIV positive.
• From HIV positive women to their babies.
• Bodily fluids.

HIV also can be transmitted through transfusion of infected blood or blood clotting factors.  However, since 1985, all donated blood in the United States have been tested for HIV. The risk of infection through transfusion of blood or blood products is extremely low-but if you have risk factors for HIV, you should avoid donating blood.  It is important to remember that you should not donate blood for the purpose of getting tested for HIV.

Guam's AIDS hotline is (671) 734-AIDS (2437) for more information and assistance.

What is HIV?

H- Human: This particular virus infects human beings.

I- Immunodeficiency: HIV weakens your immune system by destroying cells that fight disease and infection.

V- Virus: A virus can only reproduce itself by taking over a cell in the body it has infected.

HIV is a lot like other viruses, including those that cause the “flu” or the common cold.  But there  is an important difference, over time, your immune system can clear most viruses out of your body.  That isn’t the case with HIV.  You can’t seem to get rid of it.  Scientists are still trying to figure out why.

HIV can hide for long periods of time in the cells of your body and that it attacks a key part of your immune system—T-cells or CD4 cells.  Your body has to have these cells to fight infections and disease, but HIV takes over, uses them to make more copies of itself, and then destroys them.

Overtime, HIV can destroy so many of your CD4 cells that your body can’t fight infections and diseases anymore.  When that happens, HIV infection can lead to AIDS

Health Disparities-HIV/AIDS

Despite prevention efforts, some groups of people are affected by HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, STDs, and TB more than other groups of people. The occurrence of these diseases at greater levels among certain population groups more than among others is often referred to as a health disparity. Differences may occur by gender, race or ethnicity, education, income, disability, geographic location and sexual orientation among others. Social determinants of health like poverty, unequal access to health care, lack of education, stigma, and racism are link to health disparities.  http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/healthdisparities/