BY JOHN SNYDER
OF PASCACK PRESS
MONTVALE, N.J.—The Hills/Valley Community Coalition For Resilient Youth welcomed parents, teachers, and students to a dynamic program, Growing Up OVERexposed: Helping Teens Navigate in a Hyper-Sexualized Digital World, on April 3 at Pascack Hills High School in Montvale.
The evening featured keynote speaker Lauren Hersh, founder and national director of World Without Exploitation, who urges “real and raw conversations about tough issues that ignite change and expose truths.”
Panel discussion followed, with Hersh; Allison Bressler, a founder of A Partnership For Change and a domestic violence counselor and prevention advocate; and David Cohen, director of Bergen County Alternatives to Domestic Violence and a counselor for victims and perpetrators of domestic violence.
Hersh, a veteran prosecutor, lawyer, gender justice activist, educator, writer, and a parent, tapped into what clearly is a growing anxiety.
Her message drew discussion around gender messaging, hyper-sexualized teen and tween behavior, drug and alcohol use, date rape culture, and “navigating consent in an ever-changing digital world.”
The doors opened at 6 with a mental health fair, where hundreds from the community browsed resources and had sensitive questions answered by mental health professionals and HVC members.
Fourteen police officer partners from the district’s four municipalities—Woodcliff Lake, Montvale, Hillsdale and River Vale—were on hand.
Opening remarks were by HVC Coordinator Gale Mangold with Assistant Coordinator Danielle Jenkins.
At her keynote, Hersh urged students, parents and educators to explore “some of the toughest issues impacting young people today, including rape, pornography, online exploitation, cyber-bullying, and sexting.”
“Only we have the power to create a world where nobody is silent about injustices. Let’s start talking,” Hersh said in part.
Her audience was eager to voice their fears about kids growing up in a social media and popular culture that “hyper-sexualizes” teen and tween behavior.
She said kid culture now includes always-available pornography, which the web enables on screens in every corner of their lives—and that the average age kids discover it is 11.
On her website, she says she believes that lasting change requires legal reform and meaningful community engagement. As co-chair of the New York Anti-Trafficking Coalition, she led a movement to pass the Trafficking Victims Protection and Justice Act in 2015.
And recognizing the importance of inspiring young activists, she created the Teen Leadership Initiative, a high school program to combat gender violence through education and advocacy.
She’s been honored with the National Organization for Women’s Susan B. Anthony Award and was named a New York Law Journal Rising Star.
HVC is an alliance of community members working to promote a stigma-free substance-free environment for the families of Hillsdale, Montvale, River Vale and Woodcliff Lake.
The organization is composed of school officials, municipal leaders, law enforcement officers, business leaders, health providers, faith-based leaders, and residents.
HVC is backed by Bergen County Municipal Alliance Prevention Program funds, sponsorships, donations from treatment providers, and inpatient referral sources.
Mangold told Pascack Press at the event—the latest in her nearly quarter-century of providing them to the wider school community—had exceeded her expectations.
“It really proves that this is a partnership, a coalition of stakeholders who come together to provide a safe environment for our students and families,” she said.
The mental health fair is a force in its own right, making the county’s wealth of therapeutic resources visible and immediately accessible to the community, she said.
She lauded Hersh, A Partnership For Change (apartnershipforchange.org) Bergen County Alternatives to Domestic Violence (crisis hotline 201-336-7575), Center For Hope and Safety (hopeandsafetynj.org), and the YWCA Bergen County healingSPACE (hotline 201-487-2227) for their contribution to the event and to the wider community.
“Parents can’t do it all. It’s important to have a team approach. Hersh really drove that point home. It’s the law, it’s parents, and it’s educators. And it has to start in elementary school,” Mangold said.
She also singled out a grant program, now in its second year in the district and run by Bressler, which focuses on prevention, intervention, and victim support.
For more information on the Hills/Valley Coalition, visit hillsvalleycoalition.org.