Southside Teens About Respect- A teen dating violence prevention project

STAR: Southside Teens About Respect
A Comprehensive, Community-based Approach to Preventing Intimate Partner Violence

This project is generously supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Violence Prevention, grant number US4/CCU514166-01. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the CDC.

Purpose
The purpose of the STAR project is to evaluate a set of coordinated services designed to prevent teen dating violence in community on Chicago's South side. The primary objective of the evaluation is to improve the services and to evaluate their effectiveness.

The Working Partners and their Programs
Metropolitan Family Services (Metro) will provide a ten-session dating violence curriculum for 7th and 8th grade students at the three elementary schools. Using a variety of techniques such as role play, videos, creative expression, structured exercises, an anonymous "question box," and practice of new skills, the sessions will engage students in discussion of real life situations related to healthy and abusive relationships.

The 7th grade curriculum will include seven coeducational and three single sex sessions. The coed sessions will cover such issues as learned behavior and the impact of media messages about violence and abuse of power. Three skill-building sessions will deal with communication, problem solving and decision making, managing anger, and conflict resolution. In the single sex workshops, students will learn about gender messages and stereotypes, healthy and unhealthy relationships, and power and control. In the last session, students will review the attitudes and behaviors they learned, provide feedback, and learn about available resources.

For the 8th graders, the workshops will focus on relationships. Coed sessions will deal with dating patterns and relationships, defining good male/female relationships, and skill-building, e.g., active listening and assertive statements, problem solving in dating situations, anger management, and attitudes and behaviors conducive to safe dating. The single sex sessions will engage students in identifying gender stereotypes, recognizing the cycle of violence, and identifying the warning signals of an abusive relationship. Metro will also present workshops for the faculty and parents of 7th and 8th grade students in the participating feeder schools.

The Harris Young Women's Christian Assocication (HYWCA) will be responsible for the student workshops at the participating High School. Building on ten years of experience in the high schools, the Rape and Dating Violence Prevention Program will include three single sex sessions and one coed forum. HYWCA will use a male/female team to cover such issues as: what is domestic and teen dating violence; how to change the cycle of violence; and developing empathy and understanding. Interested students will have the opportunity to participate in HYWCA' s quarterly peer counselor training program and associated meetings.

Wellspring will provide workshops for out-of-school youth and community residents. Drawing on existing relationships with churches, hospital/medical facilities, child-parent centers, women's shelters and settlement houses, block clubs, community agencies (WIC sites) and local businesses, Wellspring will identify venues that are easy-to-reach and accessible to out-of-school youth and working adults. For out-of-school youth, the programs will be a more compact version of the school-based workshops. Consistent with theories about adult learning, the community workshops will be relevant to the life experiences of the participants.

The Illinois Coalition for Violence Prevention (ICVP), through YouthPeace, promotes youth activism and leadership in violence prevention. ICVP will establish a YouthPeace chapter at the high school through which students can enter a statewide youth network, build skills and knowledge about dating violence, and become mentors to younger students in neighboring elementary schools. The group will meet two or three times per month and include a core membership of 15-20 students who, in turn, will reach at least 200-300 students.

YouthPeace will use educational posters and discussions guides dealing with teen dating violence, highlight the link between alcohol and violence, and promote youth activism in violence prevention. The program will train students to become peer educators and support them in developing a youth activism project; e.g., development of peer counselors, creation of a theater or arts project about dating violence, etc. YouthPeace will also help participants develop partnerships with adults and appropriate community agencies. Participating students will have the opportunity to lead segments of the school-based workshops and to conduct interviews with the out-of-school youth and community adults.

The Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) will develop and coordinate a local media campaign to promote awareness of teen dating violence in our selected community. The Be Sharp - Date Smart campaign will support attitudes and behaviors that prevent teen dating violence. It will also seek to identify and provide help to school-aged children and adolescents who witness partner violence at home. YouthPeace students will help plan and give shape to the media campaign, which will use the vernacular of young people and be ethnically and culturally representative of the community.

A Media Advisory Council will help develop and implement the following activities over the three year period of the project: produce and develop television and radio public service announcements to promote awareness of teen dating violence and identify community resources; develop a series of posters that address teen dating violence; develop and implement a twelve-month placard campaign for 100 buses and trains that pass through the community; develop a series of billboards to be strategically placed at stores, near transit stops and at schools; develop flyers for distribution in schools, churches, recreational facilities, shopping areas, and laundry mats (10,000 flyers will be produced for distribution); and develop media kits for radio, television, and print media.

Objectives
The goal of the STAR project is to reduce the incidence of teen dating violence in the our community by addressing each of the following objectives:
1. Increasing participants' knowledge of the extent, causes, and solutions to teen dating violence;
2. Changing violence supportive attitudes;
3. Increasing healthy relationship skills among adolescents;
4. Promoting peer leadership and activism;
5. Increasing community awareness of intimate partner violence; and
6. Increasing utilization of community anti-violence resources.

Number of Subjects
Metro will target approximately 700 7^th and 8^th grade students in the intervention classrooms,
70 elementary school teachers, and 50 parents.

HYWCA will target approximately 500 high school students, 30 teachers, and 50 parents.

Wellspring will target approximately 200 out-of-school youth and 100 parents in community settings.

ICVP will target approximately 20 high school students.

CDPH will target the entire community with its media campaign.
Approximately 1000 community members will be surveyed regarding their exposure to the media campaign.

Follow this link to view a copy of the questionnaires used in the STAR Project
Follow this link to view plots of the first year results of the STAR Project

To request a copy of the questionnaires used in the STAR Project,
email Paul Schewe, Ph.D. , STAR Project Evaluator.

Goal/Objectives	Measurement Plan
Reduce the incidence of teen dating violence	-After participating in the school-based programs, participating students will report less violence in relationships than students in the control classrooms based on self-report from the Conflicts in Relationships and Justification of Violence, and the History of Fighting questionnaires.
#1 Increase knowledge of the extent, causes, and solutions to teen dating violence	-Participating students will report an increase in knowledge and use of resources post-treatment as compared to students in the control classrooms as measured by the Dating Violence Test, Resources and Help Seeking Questionnaire, and Conflicts in Relationships questionnaire. -Out-of -school youth, teachers and parents will report an increase in knowledge post-treatment as compared to their pre-treatment scores on the Dating Violence Test and Resources and Help Seeking Questionnaire.
#2 Decrease violence supportive attitudes	-Students will report a decrease in violence supportive attitudes as compared to students in the control classrooms as measured by the Violence Supportive Attitudes questionnaire. -Out-of -school youth will report a decrease in violence supportive attitudes as compared to their pre-treatment scores on the Violence Supportive Attitudes questionnaire. -YouthPeace volunteers will report a decrease in violence supportive attitudes as compared to students in the treatment and control classrooms as measured by the Violence Supportive Attitudes questionnaire.
#3 Increase healthy relationship skills	-Participating students will report an increase in healthy relationships skills as compared to students in the control classrooms as measured by the Relationships Skills Questionnaire.
#4 Promote peer leadership and activism	-The number of YouthPeace volunteers at will be monitored. The number of mentoring relationships that these students develop with their peers regarding dating violence will be monitored.
#5 Increase community awareness of intimate partner violence	-The percentage of community residents exposed to public messages regarding intimate partner violence will be monitored using the Media Campaign Survey. Increased exposure to media messages should be correlated with increased recognition of the problem of dating violence, possible solutions, and community resources.
#6 Increase utilization of community anti-violence resources	-The number of phone calls to the Dating/Domestic Violence Hotline from our selected community will be monitored using the Dating/Domestic Violence Hotline Monitoring Form.