The One Love Foundation, an organization created to honor the memory of the late University student Yeardley Love, updated its mobile app in September to include a quiz which users can take to help them determine the risk of domestic violence in their own relationships.
The foundation was established in 2010 after Love, a fourth-year College student at the time, was killed in a domestic dispute by her classmate and former boyfriend George Huguely. The two were both varsity lacrosse players.
In addition to honoring Love’s memory, the foundation also aims to “end relationship violence through education and technology,” according to its website. The new app hopes to further that goal.
“It can help someone see the signs of a potentially dangerous relationship,” said Katy Sandusky, the foundation’s director of events. “It’s very common that people say after the fact that they just didn’t know what they were looking for and this app helps with that.”
The app, One Love Lite, assesses risk by offering a 20-question quiz that asks about topics such as a partner’s possession of a gun and threats of suicide or murder.
It also offers users the ability to start a chat at any time of day with peer advocates from www.loveisrespect.org, a website whose aim is to similarly aid women in danger of domestic abuse.
Sandusky said there is also a more “robust” second app in the works.
“[It] will offer ways to develop a plan to get out of a dangerous situation or to make the situation safer,” she said.
Claire Kaplan, director of Sexual and Domestic Violence Services at the University Women’s Center, said she has high hopes for the app.
“A person in the privacy of her own phone can do an assessment to figure out if she’s in a dangerous situation,” Kaplan said. “[And the websites they provide at the end of the quiz] are the national sites that I consider to be the best.”
She added that there are many resources at the University that can be helpful if a user finds they are in a dangerous situation.
The app, however, has already received criticism for ignoring the possibility of men being abused by women and other forms of relationship violence, Sandusky said.
“For now, we can’t speculate about applying this information to other types of relationships,” she said. “However, it’s never our intention to leave any of these types of relationships out, but we just don’t have enough information yet to generalize.”
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