Advancing a Comprehensive Multilevel Approach to Sexual Violence Prevention Using Existing Efficacious Programs.

ABSTRACT: Sexual violence (SV) is a serious and long-standing public health problem on college campuses. At institutions of higher education, campus administrators, activists, and practitioners have worked for decades to address campus SV. Despite federally mandated campus SV prevention programming, rates of campus SV remain unchanged. The purpose of this commentary is to outline a strategy for enhancing campus SV prevention efforts using a comprehensive multilevel approach utilizing existing efficacious programs. The following three strategies for implementing optimal campus SV prevention are proposed, which include (a) the need to prioritize efficacy, (b) targeting multiple levels of the social ecology, and (c) leveraging the benefits of in-person programming and technology-driven prevention. A call to action is included for both institutions of higher education administrators and practitioners to implement and invest in comprehensive multilevel interventions using existing, efficacious SV programs, ideally combining a technology-based program with an in-person component. Furthermore, a coordinated effort between prevention and response is needed to achieve successful prevention of campus SV and revictimization, including a connection with the community for postassault interventions. Thus, implementing multilevel interventions on college campuses using existing evidence-based programs in combination with a coordinated community response of postassault interventions can bring the campus community together and is optimal to moving the needle on rates of campus SV.

Sexual and Dating Violence Bystander Intervention Programs within Institutions of Higher Education: Strategies for Research and Practice.

This article presents strategies to promote researcher-practitioner collaborations in the development and evaluation of bystander intervention programs that address sexual and dating violence (SDV) at Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs). The benefits of practitioner partnerships with researchers are reviewed. We then review examples of researcher-practitioner collaborations to develop, implement, and evaluate bystander programs. Suggestions are also offered for researcher-practitioner collaborators to engage survivors of SDV and overlooked populations, such as racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual minorities, as ways to promote diversity. Lastly, we provide guidelines for researcher-practitioner collaborations to engage bystanders based on the lessons learned from these collaborations within and around the IHE community.

Developing and Piloting Videogames to Increase College and University Students' Awareness and Efficacy of the Bystander Role in Incidents of Sexual Violence.

OBJECTIVE: Researchers at the Prevention Innovations Research Center at the University of New Hampshire and the Tiltfactor Laboratory at Dartmouth College collaborated with students to create two videogames to teach college students bystander intervention skills in situations of sexual and relationship violence and stalking. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A key strength of the present study is the collaboration with students to educate game development. The research team pooled its ideas to create a trivia game and an interactive scenario game that were pilot tested on first-year students in a midsized campus of a northeastern university. "Each game included subject matter related to sexual assault and bystander intervention, as well as general campus information so the main themes of the game would not be overt and potentially cause participants to resist shifting their attitudes about sexual assault and bystander intervention." Participants completed a pretest and posttest at each testing session and were invited to complete an online follow-up survey 4 weeks following the session. RESULTS: Researchers found that both games had a significant impact on participant bystander efficacy and attitude scores. The interactive scenario game was especially effective in increasing male attitudes toward bystander intervention. The results were most salient for the posttest; however, there was also an increase in male attitudes at the 4-week follow-up. CONCLUSION: The student input was invaluable to the success of the game prototypes. With their help, we concluded that gameplay shows promise as an effective way to introduce the concept of bystander intervention and increase bystander attitudes and efficacy in situations of sexual and relationship violence and stalking to first-year college students.

Changing attitudes about being a bystander to violence: translating an in-person sexual violence prevention program to a new campus.

Bystander approaches to reducing sexual violence train community members in prosocial roles to interrupt situations with risk of sexual violence and be supportive community allies after an assault. This study employs a true experimental design to evaluate the effectiveness of Bringing in the Bystander™ through 1-year post-implementation with first-year students from two universities (one rural, primarily residential; one urban, heavily commuter). We found significant change in bystander attitudes for male and female student program participants compared with the control group on both campuses, although the pattern of change depended on the combination of gender and campus.

Intimate partner homicide: new insights for understanding lethality and risks.

Research on covictims, family members, and close friends who have lost loved ones to intimate partner homicide (IPH) is a neglected area of study. We conducted phenomenological interviews with covictims to gain insights into risk and lethality, examined affidavits from criminal case files, and reviewed news releases. The data uncovered acute risk factors prior to the homicide, identified changes in the perpetrators' behavior and the perpetrators' perceived loss of control over the victim, and described barriers that victims faced when attempting to gain safety. Findings suggest that recognizing acute risk factors is an important area for future IPH research.

Encouraging responses in sexual and relationship violence prevention: what program effects remain 1 year later?

Colleges and universities are high-risk settings for sexual and relationship violence. To address these problems, institutions of higher education have implemented prevention programs, many of which train students as potential bystanders who can step in to help diffuse risky situations, identify and challenge perpetrators, and assist victims. The impact of bystander sexual and relationship violence prevention programs on long-term behavior of bystanders has remained a key unanswered question for those who seek to offer the most effective programs as well as for policy makers. In this study, the researchers experimentally evaluated the effectiveness of the Bringing in the Bystander® in-person program. Participants were 948 1st-year college students of whom 47.8% were women and 85.2% identified as White (15% also identified as Hispanic in a separate question) between the ages of 18 and 24 at two universities (one a rural, primarily residential campus and the other an urban, highly commuter campus) in the northeastern United States. To date, this is the first study to have found positive behavior changes as long-lasting as 1 year following an educational workshop focusing on engaging bystanders in preventing sexual and relationship violence. Even so, many questions remain to be answered about prevention and intervention of this type. More prospective research is needed on bystander-focused prevention of these forms of violence to help understand and better predict the complicated relationships both between and among the attitudes and behaviors related to preventing sexual and relationship violence. In this regard, we make specific recommendations for designing and evaluating programs based on our findings relating to the importance of moderators, especially two key understudied ones, readiness to help and opportunity to intervene.

Addressing sexual and relationship violence in the LGBT community using a bystander framework.

Sexual and relationship violence are two major public health issues that affect an alarming number of undergraduate students. As a result, many colleges and universities have protocols to serve victims of these forms of violence. Despite federal legislation stating that all students should have equitable experiences, current protocols and programs focus primarily on heterosexual students. College student victims of sexual and relationship violence who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender can face particular challenges, including disclosure of their sexual and gender orientations, and revictimization when seeking services. In recent years an increasing number of campuses have adopted bystander prevention strategies to address sexual and relationship violence. These strategies seek to engage community members in the prevention of sexual and relationship violence by training them to identify and safely intervene in situations where sexual or relationship violence is about to occur, is occurring, or has occurred. In this article we review published bystander prevention strategies that focus on preventing sexual and relationship violence in the campus community, and discuss how bystander strategies are addressing or can address relationship and sexual violence in the LGBT community.

Translating sexual assault prevention from a college campus to a United States military installation: piloting the know-your-power bystander social marketing campaign.

One population that shares both similar and different characteristics with traditional college-age students is the U.S. Military. Similarities include a high concentration of 18- to 26-year-olds dealing with new found independence, peer pressure, and the presence of social norms that support violence and hypermasculinity. Sexual violence is a major public health problem in the United States, and because of the similarities in the age group of college and military populations, the problems regarding sexual violence in both constituencies have been well-documented. In the current pilot study we seek to add to both current knowledge about and promising practices of translating prevention strategies from one target audience to another. We describe how we translated, administered, and evaluated a bystander intervention social marketing campaign focused on sexual assault prevention that had been found to significantly affect attitude change on a college campus for a U.S. Army installation in Europe. In addition to demonstrating the process of translating prevention strategies across target audiences, findings from this pilot study contribute to the evaluation data on the effectiveness of sexual violence prevention strategies implemented with members of the U.S. Military. From our analysis, we see that research participants indicate that the degree to which the images resonate with them and the familiarity of the context (i.e., social self-identification) significantly effect the participants' personal responsibility for reducing sexual assault, confidence in acting as a bystander, and reported engagement as a bystander.

An examination of SANE data: clinical considerations based on victim-assailant relationship.

The current study analyzes adult female sexual assault data, collected by sexual assault nurse examiners (SANEs) in New Hampshire, United States, between 1997 and 2007. The purposes of this study were to (1) explore the relationship between patient and assailant, (2) examine patients' physical findings according to assailant type, (3) describe characteristics of both the patients and the assaults, and (4) make care recommendations. Secondary analysis was conducted on data gathered by SANEs from responses to a standardized questionnaire based on the medical/forensic examination of each patient over an 11-year period. Of the 741 women in this study, 53% were sexually assaulted by a nonstranger, 18% were assaulted by an intimate partner, and 11% were assaulted by a stranger. The relationship between patient and assailant is an important variable that requires SANEs to take a closer look at assessing for lethality, and assisting with safety planning, intervention, and treatment for victims.

Bringing in the target audience in bystander social marketing materials for communities: suggestions for practitioners.

The Know Your Power™ social marketing campaign images model active bystander behaviors that target audience members can use in situations where sexual and relationship violence and stalking are occurring, have occurred, or have the potential to occur. In this practitioner note, we describe strategies that we have used to engage target audience members in the development of the social marketing campaign that we hope can be used by practitioners. We give examples from the development and evaluation of the Know Your Power(TM) social marketing campaign that used focus group and other types of feedback from the target audience to inform the direction of the campaign.

Sisterhood may be powerful for reducing sexual and intimate partner violence: an evaluation of the Bringing in the Bystander in-person program with sorority members.

Sorority members may be at greater risk than other college women for sexual violence and intimate partner violence (IPV). We evaluated the Bringing in the Bystander in-person program with sorority members who participated in the program (n = 30) compared with those who did not (n = 18). Results indicate that program participants showed increased bystander efficacy, likelihood to help, and responsibility for ending violence without unintended "backlash" effects. Implications include a call for future programming with more diverse sorority members over longer time. In addition, we discuss what the findings might mean for formal campus policies and practices for preventing sexual violence and IPV.

Using social self-identification in social marketing materials aimed at reducing violence against women on campus.

Bystander-focused in person sexual violence prevention programs provide an opportunity for skill development among bystanders and for widening the safety net for survivors. A social marketing campaign was designed modeling prosocial bystander behavior and using content familiar to target audience members by staging and casting scenes to look similar to the people and situations that the target audience regularly encounters. We refer to this sense of familiarity as social self-identification. In this exploratory study, we attempt to understand how seeing oneself and one's peer group (e.g., social self-identification) in poster images affects target audience members' (e.g., college students) willingness to intervene as a prosocial bystander. The posters in the social marketing campaign were displayed throughout a midsize northeastern public university campus and neighboring local businesses frequented by students. During the last week of the 4-week poster display, the university's homepage portal featured an advertisement displaying a current model of an iPod offering undergraduate students an opportunity to win the device if they completed a community survey. We found that among students who had seen the posters, those who indicated that the scenes portrayed in the posters looked like situations that were familiar to them were significantly more likely to contemplate taking action in preventing a situation where sexual violence had the potential to occur. Furthermore, students who indicated familiarity with the poster content were more likely to indicate that they had acted in a manner similar to those portrayed in the poster. Future directions based on findings from this exploratory study are discussed.

Engaging intercollegiate athletes in preventing and intervening in sexual and intimate partner violence.

OBJECTIVE: the object of this exploratory evaluation was to evaluate the "Bringing in the Bystander" sexual and intimate partner violence prevention program with a new sample of intercollegiate athletes. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: fifty-three male and female athletes participated in the program (experimental group), and 86 were in the control group. All completed pretest, posttest, and 2-month follow-up surveys, including assessment of rape myth acceptance, intent to engage in bystander behaviors, bystander confidence, and bystander behaviors. RESULTS: the program worked overall and for both women and men, improved bystander confidence and intent to engage in bystander behaviors, and did not create significant backlash effects (ie, worsening of attitudes as a result of program). CONCLUSIONS: the program fits with the intent of the National Collegiate Athletic Association CHAMPS/Life Skills program regarding its focus on the overall development of student-athletes and demonstrates the promising bystander approach compatible with the 2007 American College Health Association toolkit, Shifting the Paradigm: Primary Prevention of Sexual Violence.

Findings from Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANE): A case study of New Hampshire's pediatric SANE database.

The purpose of this article is to provide child sexual abuse data gathered by sexual assault nurse examiners (SANEs) in New Hampshire at the time of the medical/forensic examination. This study provides demographic, victim and assault characteristics from 696 child sexual abuse patients between 1997 and 2007. The study is a collaborative project between the SANE Advisory Board, a team of university researchers, and the Research Committee of the New Hampshire (NH) Governor's Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence.

Empowering bystanders to prevent campus violence against women: a preliminary evaluation of a poster campaign.

Researchers at a midsized public northeastern university evaluated the efficacy of a poster campaign to determine if students increase their knowledge of prosocial bystander behaviors and willingness to intervene in instances of sexual violence after viewing a series of campaign posters where student actors model appropriate bystander behaviors. During the last week of the campaign, undergraduates were invited to participate in a Web survey. The results of this preliminary evaluation indicate promising variation in the awareness of students who reported seeing the campaign compared to those who did not.

Designing, implementing, and evaluating a media campaign illustrating the bystander role.

Recent research found that training men and women to understand the role of bystanders in situations where violence against women (VAW) is occurring may reduce the incidence of VAW (Moynihan & Banyard, 2004). Therefore a public awareness campaign to increase understanding of the prosocial role of bystanders in reducing VAW was developed and implemented. The current article discusses the role of media campaigns in addressing public health issues and describes the initial development, implementation, and evaluation of a media campaign focused on the bystander role in reducing the incidence of VAW. Conclusions and future directions of this exploratory project are discussed.