Literature Review - Evaluations Done on Youth Dating Violence Prevention Programs Internationally

Thanks to Lead Trainer Kate Rohdenburg for summarizing and presenting themes from research on youth dating violence prevention programs internationally. What other research has been particularly impactful to you as you have constructed prevention efforts? Let’s share what we know!

Increasingly, dating and sexual violence among young people is being seen for the critical and preventable epidemic it is. As prevention programs and strategies have developed, evaluation has been challenging and crucial to learn about our impact and areas of opportunity in shifting our culture to one of safety and respect. This fall, The Lancet provided a really interesting overview of evaluations. Largely the take away was "more research needed" which - no kidding!

A few other fascinating themes emerged: 

· Factors that increase vulnerability and exposure to violence were largely absent from evaluations or program goals, as were activities related to policy, community, family and peer network level change.

· There were differences in the topics that were commonly found in High Income Countries (HIC) versus Low and Medium Income Countries (LMIC). In particular, "Programmes that included education or training for healthy relationships were more likely to be evaluated in HICs than in LMICs. By contrast, programmes evaluated in LMICs were more likely to include activities related to promoting gender-equitable attitudes or norms."

·  Further along those lines, programs implemented in HIC were less likely to address gender inequality than were programs in LMIC: 

“Programmes implemented in HICs often include explicit recognition that both boys and girls can be victims and perpetrators of abuse. By contrast, programmes implemented in LMICs typically have a strong gender lens informed by empirical research showing that girls are at a higher risk for experiencing sexual violence than boys, and that gender disparities in access to education, health, and economic opportunities, in conjunction with inequitable gender norms, contribute to girls’ susceptibility to adolescent dating violence victimization (and boys’ propensity for perpetration)…such research should consider calls for violence prevention approaches that are gender transformative and that go beyond seeking to modify normative beliefs about partner violence to engaging communities and youth in changing the structural processes that produce and sustain gender inequalities.”

· Finally, they noted that there was a strong suggestion that programs could and maybe should work to promote prevention factors across intersecting issues:

"Programmes that work through changes in these factors to affect adolescent dating violence might thus also simultaneously work to prevent other adolescent health risk behaviours and outcomes. For example, programmes that decrease inequitable gender norms might not only lead to reductions in adolescent dating violence but also prevent sexual harassment, bullying, homophobic behaviour, substance use, and high-risk sexual behaviour…Researchers have noted that programmes that effectively target shared risk or protective factors and, in turn, prevent multiple adolescent health risk behaviours, might be more efficient and effective than programmes that target a single risk behavior."

Soteria remains committed to closing the gap between the depth and breadth of knowledge that is held by prevention practitioners and the communities working to end violence, and that of the researchers who can help us to quantify and qualify our work. If you have thoughts and ideas about how the links between research and practice can be made stronger to support your work, we want to hear them!