AUGUSTA – Gov. John Baldacci and Attorney General Steven Rowe will help to open a forum Monday on teen dating violence, a problem state officials say affects one in four relationships between high school students.

The forum at Winthrop High School coincides with the start of National Teen Dating Violence and Prevention Week. State Public Safety Commissioner Michael Cantara and educators will join Baldacci and Rowe in Monday’s early morning event.

Teenagers from around the country attended a dating violence awareness and prevention conference in 2004 and helped develop strategies that have been organized into a “toolkit” available to high schools, according to U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, sponsor of a resolution declaring the Feb. 6-10 national observance.

Ten Maine schools are using the new “toolkits,” according to Rowe.

Rowe said the instance and severity of abuse increase as teenage relationships progress. One in four dating relationships during high school are verbally, emotionally, physically or sexually abusive, Rowe said.

The American Bar Association, which helped to develop the abuse strategies, said that between 1993 and 1999, 22 percent of all homicides against females ages 16 to 19 were committed by an intimate partner.

Crapo, R-Idaho, cited figures showing that 20 percent of surveyed male students reported having seen a fellow high school student physically hit a person they were dating.

Yet four out of five parents surveyed believe teen dating violence is not an issue or don’t know if it is an issue, he said.