The ICASA Project:
Best Practices for School-Based Sexual Assault Prevention Programming
Introduction
The ICASA Project began as a collaboration between the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault (ICASA) and Paul Schewe, with the goal of improving the effectiveness of rape prevention programming in Illinois.  Three of the primary goals of this project were to: 1) Develop a common set of outcome measures that could be used to assess the effectiveness of ICASA’s 29 independent rape prevention programs, 2) Identify the best programs in the state for improving the attitudes, knowledge, and behavioral intentions of male and female students, urban, suburban, and rural students, and Caucasian, African American, and Hispanic students, and 3) Identify the content and characteristics of prevention programs that are most associated with success.  Other products of this project have included a description of existing rape prevention programs in Illinois, and a literature review of rape prevention outcome evaluations.  The literature review was published in the book “Preventing Violence in Relationships: Interventions Across the Life Span” edited by Paul Schewe and published by APA in June 2002.
Outcome Measures
Educators from 29 independent rape crisis centers affiliated with the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault (ICASA) assisted in the development of these measures.  The educators used logic models of their programs and brainstorming to develop a list of potential outcomes of their interventions.  Early on it became clear that the intended outcomes of prevention programming for males were different than the intended outcomes for female participants.  Consensus among the educators was used to identify the most common constructs targeted for change for male and female participants among the 29 participating sexual assault programs.  The educators then worked in groups to develop questions that could be used to measure the selected constructs.  Multiple iterations of the questionnaires were reviewed by the prevention educators and national experts in sexual assault prevention (Alan Berkowitz, Mary Heppner, Kim Lonsway, and Sarah Ullman) until consensus was achieved.  The measures were then administered to a pilot sample of high school students and further revised based on feedback from students and from psychometric analysis of the pilot data.  During the 2001-2002 school year, prevention educators administered the questionnaires pre and post intervention to over 3000 student participants of their programs.  Psychometric analyses of this data revealed adequate convergent validity, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability for each of the measures.

Star Performers
Data collected during the 2001-2002 school year was used to identify the best performing agencies for various sub-groups of students based on gender, race, and geographic location.  During the upcoming years, these best performing agencies will begin to disseminate their programs and to provide peer training and technical assistance to other ICASA agencies.
Best Practices
A variety of regression and multivariate analyses were performed in order to identify the content and characteristics of programs that are most associated with success.  Below are some of the key findings to date that predict improvement on the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance scale for male and female students.  Additional analyses will be run in order to identify best practices for various sub-groups of students based on gender, race, and geographic location, and for various sub-types of programs (i.e., single versus multiple session programs).
Characteristics of Prevention Programs Associated with Success
  • More sessions are better than fewer
  • Shorter sessions are better than longer sessions
  • A male/female team of prevention educators produces the overall best results for both male and female students
  • Younger students change more than older students
Content of Prevention Programs Associated with Success [1]
  • Discussing how to help a friend who has been assaulted
  • Describing what you should do if you are victimized
  • Addressing healthy relationship skills
  • Identifying rape myths and presenting factual information
  • Discussing gender roles
  • Describing the school’s sexual harassment policy (especially for “high risk” students[2] )
  • Discussing date rape drugs
Content of Prevention Programs Inversely Related to Change Scores on the IRMA[3]
  • Presenting statistics and sexual assault definitions
  • Discussing the negative consequences of committing rape
  • Teaching about alcohol
  • Addressing victim empathy
  • Teaching students to avoid high risk situations and discussing the warning signs of an abusive person
  • Discussing the warning signs of an abusive partner
Presentation Formats of Programs Associated with Success
  • Games
  • Quizzes
  • Handouts
  • Survivor presentation
Presentation Formats of Programs Inversely Associated with Success
  • Lecture
  • Video
  • Anonymous question box
  • Drama
Next Steps
ICASA agencies will repeat the evaluation process when funding becomes available.  The results of this evaluation will strengthen and expand our knowledge of best practices, and will allow us to determine the extent to which agencies were able to use the results of the initial evaluation to improve the effectiveness of their interventions.

[1]  “Success” is defined by a programs ability to change students’ scores on the IRMA scale

[2] “High risk” is defined by scoring above the statewide average on the IRMA scale

[3] Please note, it is not necessarily expected that these content areas would be positively associated with change on the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance scale.