Attendance at a Community-Based, After School, Youth-Led Sexual Violence Prevention Initiative.

Sexual violence (SV) among adolescents is a pervasive public health concern. Research on community-based prevention programs that seek to reach youth outside of school hours is less developed, but suggests positive effects. In the current paper, we examine attendance at community events and overnight retreats for a youth-led SV prevention initiative, Youth Voices in Prevention (Youth VIP) using survey (n = 2539) and short-answer (n = 1177) data from a broad sample of youth in a small urban district in the Great Plains (United States), where Youth VIP took place. Multivariate logistic regression models using multiple imputation sampling were tested for retreat and community event attendance (respectively). The model of retreat attendance found that those with past SV victimization had significantly higher odds of attending retreats and each additional extracurricular activity youth participated in was associated with increased odds of attendance. The model of event attendance found that male youth had significantly lower odds of attending an event and that odds of attending increased with each additional extracurricular activity reported. Age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and bystander denial were not significant predictors of attendance. Short-answer questions, coded with content analysis, found that youth report being more likely to attend if events feature fun activities with their friends, money, or other incentives; in survey questions, youth report lack of time and lack of interest as the most common reasons for non-attendance. Findings suggest that programming that blends social time and recreational activities with SV content may improve youth attendance; additional recruitment may be needed to engage male youth and youth who are less involved in extracurriculars. This study provides important insight into youth attendance-who attends, who does not, and why-that can be leveraged by others when seeking to engage youth in SV prevention.

Caregivers' Perceptions of a Youth-led Sexual Violence Prevention Initiative: A Brief Report.

Sexual and related forms of violence among middle and high school students are pervasive public health issues, and thus, there is a growing emphasis on the development and evaluation of sexual violence prevention efforts for youth. Caregivers such as parents are important partners in this work as they can facilitate youths' involvement (e.g., give them permission to participate, provide instrumental support such as rides), but their perception of their youth's involvement in sexual violence prevention efforts is largely unexplored. The current paper examined caregivers' perceptions of their teens' participation in a community-wide, out-of-school, youth-led sexual violence prevention initiative. Some caregivers of youth who were involved in the initiative (N = 19; 79.9% White; 21.1% Native American) responded to closed- and open-ended questions about what their teen had talked to them about in relation to the initiative, why their teen participated in the initiative, and how involvement impacted their teen. Furthermore, caregivers who attended events themselves responded to questions about what they learned, what they liked best, and what they liked least. Over half of caregivers said that their teens talked to them about bystander intervention, social emotional skills, and what constitutes sexual violence. Perceptions of the initiative were largely positive both in terms of what the teen learned at part of the programming and in caregivers' own experience participating. These results are promising for the role of caregivers in partners in prevention.

Use of Social Network Analysis to Identify Popular Opinion Leaders for a Youth-Led Sexual Violence Prevention Initiative.

In the current article, we describe an innovative sexual violence (SV) prevention initiative that used social network analysis to identify youth and adult popular opinion leaders who were subsequently trained in best practices in SV prevention (e.g., bystander intervention) at a kickoff event (i.e., camp) of the initiative. We provide information on recruitment strategies, participation rates and how those rates varied by some demographic factors, reasons for nonattendance, the initial impact of the camp, and lessons learned. Despite challenges with youth and adult engagement, this innovative approach has the potential to transform the way we approach SV prevention among youth.

Effectiveness of a Sexual Assault Self-defense Program for American Indian Girls.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a 6-session (12-hour) empowerment self-defense classroom delivered curriculum (i.e., IMpower) among American Indian girls. Girls (N = 74) in one middle school and two high schools on an Indian Reservation in the Great Plains region of the United States received the intervention and completed a pre-test and a post-test six months following the final program session. The surveys administered assessed hypothesized intermediary (i.e., efficacy to resist a sexual assault, self-defense knowledge), primary (i.e., sexual violence victimization), and secondary (i.e., physical dating violence, sexual harassment) outcomes. Native American girls (N = 181) in five middle schools and three high schools in a nearby city where there was no sexual assault prevention occurring completed surveys assessing sexual violence, physical dating violence, and sexual harassment victimization approximately six months apart, thus serving as a comparison to girls in the treatment condition on primary and secondary outcomes. Girls exposed to the IMpower program reported significant increases over time in efficacy to resist a sexual assault and knowledge of effective resistance strategies. Furthermore, propensity score analyses suggested that girls who received the IMpower program reported significantly fewer types of sexual assault and sexual harassment at follow-up compared to girls in the control condition. However, no effect was found for physical dating violence. These data suggest that empowerment self-defense is a promising approach in preventing sexual assault and sexual harassment among American Indian girls.