Welcome to the Building Healthy Teen Relationships Initiative, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). Building Healthy Teen Relationships is designed to prevent intimate partner violence by working in communities at the individual, interpersonal, community, and policy levels to help 10 to 14-year-old youth develop healthy and safe relationships. By strengthening the supports for developing healthy relationships among adolescents, we believe we can reduce the cycle of violence and incidence of intimate partner violence later in life.

Building Healthy Teen Relationships will support the creation and evaluation of comprehensive community-based models of prevention that aim to decrease relationship violence and increase positive, protective relationship skills. Up to eight geographically and ethnically diverse sites will receive up to $250,000 per year for up to 48 months. 

The program is directed by Esta Soler, President of the Family Violence Prevention Fund

This program solicitation is now closed. 

Over 500 applicants applied for these grants.  This was an overwhelming and unexpected response, which reflects the needs of communities in this country and the readiness of the field to prevent teen dating and sexual violence.  We thank those of you who have submitted proposals.  We so appreciate your efforts and hope you will find ways to continue your work. 

Fifty-six applicants have been invited to submit full proposals.  We will not be able to share the names of the awarded final eight grantees until October, 2008.  At this time there are no plans for a second round of funding.

For the invitation-only full proposal applicants:

The June 4th & 5th Web conference recordings are now available for playback online. Click the appropriate link in the right-hand column. Additionally, the FAQ section of this website is frequently updated with new questions and answers.