Review of Teen Dating Violence Prevention

Heather Meyer, Ph.D.
and
Nan Stein, Ph.D.
Wellesley Centers for Women, Wellesley College

I. A brief overview of the programs which were reviewed

Program/Curriculum	Program developed by:	Evaluated by:	Funded by	Research Studies/Reports
South side Teens about Respect (S.T.A.R.)	Metropolitan Family Services of Chicago, IL	Paul Schewe	The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention	Unpublished data (www.uic.edu/~scewepa/)
Building Relationships in Greater Harmony Together (B.R.I.G.H.T.)	Sarah Avery-Leaf and Michele Cascardi	Cascardi, Avery-Leaf, O’Leary, Cano, et. al.	NIMH training grant to Dr. O’Leary; the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention	Avery-Leaf, Cascardi, O’Leary, & Cano (1997) Efficacy of a dating violence prevention program on attitudes justifying aggression, Journal of Adolescent Health, 21, 11-17.
Safe Dates	Vangie Foshee	Foshee, Bauman, et al.	The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention	Foshee, Bauman, Arriaga, Helms, Koch, & Linder, (1998). An evaluation of Safe Dates, an adolescent violence prevention program. American Journal of Public Health, 88, 45-50. Foshee, Bauman, Arriaga, Helms, Koch, & Linder, (2000). The safe dates project. The Prevention Researcher, 7, 5-7.
Teen Dating Violence Intervention & Prevention Project (T.D.V.I.P.)	Carole Sousa	Dudley-Rancourt; Judith Palmer-Castor	Massachusetts State Budget (line item for teen dating violence)	Palmer-Castor (1998). Teen dating violence intervention and prevention project evaluation report (1997-98), to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and MA Department of Education. Dudley-Rancourt (June, 2000). An analysis of the components of successful high school teen dating violence prevention and intervention programs and their impact on student knowledge & attitudes. Victimization of Children & Youth: An International Research Conference
Youth Relationships Program (Y.R.P)	David Wolfe	Wolfe, et al. University of Western Ontario	National Health Research & Development Program and the Ontario Mental Health Foundation.	Pittman, Wolfe, & Wekerle (1998). Prevention during adolescence: The Youth Relationships Project. In Lutzker (Ed.) Handbook of child abuse and neglect, pp. 341-356. NY: Plenum Press.
Teen Dating Violence Program (T.D.V.P.)	Domestic Violence Intervention Services of Tulsa, OK	Mark Macgown at North Carolina State University	local area grants (Miami, Fl) and the National Council of Jewish Women	Macgowan, M., (1997). An evaluation of a dating violence prevention program for middle school students. Violence and Victims, 12, 223-235.
Teen Dating Violence Prevention Project (H.A.W.C.)	Houston Area Women’s Center Houston, TX	R. McDonald and E. Jouriles at U. of Houston	Houston Independent School District	McDonald, R. & Jouriles, E. (1998). Teen dating violence prevention project: Patterns of teen dating violence and evaluation of program effects. A final report.
London Secondary Interventions Project on Violence in Intimate Relationships (L.S.I.P.)	London Family Court Clinic, Ontario	Peter Jaffe	Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services	Jaffe, Sudermann, Reitzel, & Killip (1992). An evaluation of a secondary school primary prevention program on violence in intimate relationships, Violence and Victims, 7, 129-146.

II. Discussion of the key issues/shortcomings that we have identified in the curricula/programs addressing Teen Dating Violence.

1. As can be seen in the following chart, there is considerable variability across programs in terms of the primary goals and objectives of the curriculum/program.

   Curriculum Objectives	Programs which include this objective
   	STAR	BRIGHT	Safe Dates	TDVIP	YRP	TDVP	HAWC	LSIP
   Increase knowledgeabout dating violence	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
   Increase peer education	X
   Change attitudes that justify/ are supportive of dating violence	X		X	X	X	X	X	X
   Increase use of school based and community anti violence programs	X		X		X			X
   Decrease verbal/ physical aggression within a dating relationship	X	X	X		X			X
   Increase help seeking behavior	X	X	X		X		X
   Change gender role stereotypes			X	X				X
   Improve conflict management skills	X	X	X		X	X

    

2. "Significant" outcomes or results are generally the result of pre and post test comparisons or treatment group and control group comparisons. Often, a change on one item in a survey (rather than a scale) from pre to post program is reported as a significant outcome.  Additionally, many of the "significant" results were reported in review articles, conference presentations, etc. and the analyses and results have not yet been subjected to the rigorous review process of an empirical journal.
3. With the exception of knowledge about dating violence, there is considerable variability across programs in terms of the outcomes that are reported as "significant". It is interesting to compare the reported significant program outcomes with the program objectives (which are in the prior chart). It then becomes more obvious which outcomes did not have significant results.

The following are the areas where programs reported significant outcomes as a result of the curriculum intervention.

Outcome	Program(s) which reported some significant changes in this area***
	STAR	BRIGHT	Safe Dates	TDVIP	YRP	TDVP	HAWC	LSIP
Increase knowledge about dating violence	X	X	X	X		X		X
Increase in intention to seek help or resources	X	X					X (time 2)
Decrease in attitudes that are supportive of dating violence	X	X	X		X
Decrease in use of conflict behaviors	X	X	X		X		X (time 1)
Male students more supportive of dating violence norms								X
Increase in constructive communication			X
Change gender role stereotypes			X

*** Please note that these results may be based on unpublished data (e.g., STAR, HAWC, TDVIP) or an evaluation that took place in only one school (e.g., HAWC, TDVIP).

4. The depth/length of the curriculum also varied by program from two half days (Jaffe, et al, 1992) to a 10 session program integrated into health classes (Foshee, 1998) to an 18-session community based program (Pitman, Wolfe, et al., 1998)
5. The measures used to evaluate programs also varied. Some programs utilized single items related to knowledge and attitudes (e.g., Macgowan, 1997), others used scales which had already been tested for validity such as the Conflict Behavior Scale (see e.g, Schewe, 2000) or Victimization in Dating Relationships (see e.g., Foshee, 1998), while others created their own scales such as Dating Violence Norms (DV) (see e.g., Foshee, 1998).

3. Recommendations based on the review

Overall, it is difficult to even review the existing research on dating violence prevention curricula due to a lack of the following:

1. Consistent programs that have clear goals and objectives that map on to their results.
2. Curricula which are integrated into the classroom over a significant period of time. Many of the curriculum were not integrated into the classroom (e.g., a one hour assembly) or were a short term intervention (a few hours to a few days). The longest program in the U.S. is a 10 session curriculum (Safe Dates). It is difficult to imagine that this complex issue can be addressed in 10 one-hour sessions.
3. High quality research that examines behavioral change. Most of the existing data compares pre-post intervention measures and these measures are generally related to knowledge or attitudes---few studies look at actual changes in dating violence behaviors.
4. Longitudinal studies that explore change in knowledge/attitudes/behavior beyond three months after the completion of the program. Few studies have documented if the impact of dating violence curricula lasts beyond three months after the program is completed (for an exception see Schewe’s unpublished data, but also take into consideration the attrition rate).
5. Outside evaluators. Many of these curriculum (e.g., Foshee; Avery-Leaf & Cascardi; Wolfe; etc.) are evaluated by the same people who developed the curriculum. It is important to have an evaluator who is not invested in the program being successful so that both the significant and non-significant results can be discussed with an eye towards understanding why the program wasn’t successful in changing certain attitudes and behaviors.
6. More rigorous examination of why some researchers (e.g., Jaffe) have found that some students (particularly male students) change in "undesired" directions after completing a dating violence prevention curriculum/program (e.g., being more likely to agree that it’s OK for a male to hold down a female and force her to have sex if she gets him sexually excited).
7. A review of the literature which discusses "best practices." Although we read several review-type articles while examining existing dating violence curriculum, few used actual program data to highlight why some programs are successful, why some aren’t, and what we can learn from the successes and failures of certain programs/curriculum. No one has looked at the other prevention curriculum (in terms of violence, smoking cessation or other public health concerns) and compared successful programs in these realms to the dating violence prevention curriculum. A comparison might help us learn how other programs bring about meaningful change over time and what methods or program components could inform programs in dating violence.