The Center for Violence Prevention is a group at the University of Northern Iowa that helps to prevent domestic violence and abuse on campus. They are headed by two UNI professors, Dr. Annette Lynch and Dr. Alan Heisterkamp. Heisterkamp wanted this program to spread across the Cedar Valley, and helped to form Mentors in Violence Prevention, or MVP for short, at Cedar Falls High School.
Earlier on in the year, the group of about 70 students went to UNI for a day to learn the basics and what they would be doing, and since then, the group has been busy trying to prevent violence in the hallways at CFHS, along with helping in other places.
Lately, CFHS MVP members, have also been talking to health classes over the past few days to spread their message about how to spot and prevent violence, and in doing so, teaching life-long lessons that students can keep to help prevent violence in the long term.
The MVP members talked about issues such as domestic violence, abuse, drugs, and other topics that high school students face currently or will be facing in the short term future.
Talking about this will give students skill to help prevent domestic violence in their relationships.
CFHS counselor Susan Langan is involved in MVP.
“The program will provide support for all students and will let people know that there are people who care about them,” Langan said. “The students hold positive and uplifting ideas and that carries over to other students.
Sophomore Jacob Watters is optimistic about the end of this year, and next year as a whole.
“All that we’ve done this year is to learn basics,”Watters said. “We’re trying to get the program down so we will be able to implement it next year.”
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