"Most women stay in an abusive relationship because of economic reasons," says Yzesrose SaintDic, director of Transition House.

To that end, the House offers education, so abused women will see that they have the option of leaving the relationship.

In addition to a hotline for battered women--which logs about 1,000 calls a year from city residents--it offers a separate hotline for teens.

Outreach workers start early, with counseling sessions in many Cambridge schools. Two counselors visit Cambridge Rindge and Latin School each week to help people in abusive relationships.

"We provide boys' groups for perpetrators and girls' groups for the victims," SaintDic says.

The city's Dating Violence Intervention Project is now a national model for similar programs.

"We pretty much invented that idea," SaintDic says.

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