Baltimore, MD – Alison Rohrbach, the Assistant Director of University Health Services at UMBC, has indicated that the grant they received from the Kristin Mitchell Foundation has been put to great use.
“Luvapalooza” was held February 14, 2011 at UMBC, with healthy relationships and safe dating being major areas of concentration. Funds were used to purchase educational pamphlets and materials from Bacchus and Gamma that had the theme: “Healthy Relationships: Foundations for Respect and Caring.” These materials were distributed along with resource cards that students, faculty and staff could take with them with the contact information of members of UMBC’s Sexual Assault and Relationship Violence Response Team on one side. 
The other side was entitled “Does Your Partner?” and contained signs of an unhealthy relationship (e.g. jealousy, possessiveness, constant texting or emailing, etc.) and ways to get help. These cards were a huge success, with many students telling us they never thought about some of these behaviors as being warning signs of an unhealthy relationship.
Other educational materials for the Luvapalooza event were entitled “Love Shouldn’t Hurt.” Overall, the event was a huge success with a great turnout of students, faculty and staff. They office was able to distribute important educational information on healthy relationships and dating violence, as well as on and off campus resources for sexual assault and relationship violence.
The Kristin Mitchell Foundation grant was also used for a poster campaign in the UMBC residence halls with the theme “Healthy Relationships: Foundations of Respect and Caring.” The posters had signs of healthy and unhealthy relationships, as well as important qualities to look for in a partner. 
UMBC was very appreciative to have Bill Mitchell, the president of the Kristin Mitchell Foundation, and Kristin’s father, as guest speaker during our Relationship Violence Prevention Speaker Series. His presentation spoke volumes on UMBC’s campus, and further added to the tremendous work we were able to do with the KMF funds. UMBC’s Sexual Assault and Relationship Violence Response Team resource cards and other educational items were available at the presentation for participants. It was a collaborative effort on all ends, and Mr. Mitchell’s presence and message were very important for our campus.
We salute UMBC for helping us with our mission, and we are happy to help them with their important cause.
The mission of the Kristin Mitchell Foundation is to support educational efforts that raise awareness among young adults about the dangers of unhealthy dating relationships.
June 23rd, 2011 at 12:47 pm
Great job UHS!
July 1st, 2011 at 8:33 pm
……By Emily Jackson.While the UMBC campus community has avoided tragedies such as the death of University of Virginia student Yeardley Love violence in relationships is still something that occurs on campus..During the fall semester of 2010 had launched the in order to help those in the campus community recognize and prevent relationship violence..On Monday night campus and county government officials hosted the fourth annual Crime Victims Rights Summit to further discuss how to prevent tragedies from occurring..With a variety of sponsors including the UMBC and Baltimore County Police Departments various other Catonsville and Arbutus organizations and speakers including UMBC Student Government Association SGA president Yasmin Karimian Baltimore County State Attorney Scott Shellenbergerer and William Mitchell president and founder of the Kristen Mitchell Foundation the summit touched on a variety of topics determining who is at risk identifying warning signs escaping dangerous relationships and finally understanding bystander intervention..Opening the summit were remarks from first time summit attendee and newly appointed UMBC Chief of Police Mark Sparks who briefly introduced the guests and spoke highly of the collaborative efforts of the elected officials involved with improving the legislation for victim s rights.. In the early 1980s victims in domestic violence cases were originally regarded as an afterthought a piece of the puzzle used to solve these cases he said.. Now it s not unusual for police departments all over the country to have their own Victim s Assistance units and victims now have an easier and fairer process in court he said. .Domestic violence changed now more than co-habitants but extends to people that have some sort of relationships with each other Sparks said..The summit s first speaker UMBC SGA President Yasmin Karimian said the intention of the summit was to encourage dialogue about relationship violence..She said that she like everyone else had only heard of cases of relationship violence until the death of her friend Yeardley Love a Virginia University student who had been claimed as a victim of domestic violence in May of last year.. The relationships we encounter in both high school and college set the norm for future relationships.