NIJ study finds early school interventions significantly reduces dating violence

A post written this week on the Department of Justice's Justice Blog 
The post, titled School-Level Interventions Reduce Dating Violence, looks at key findings in a new report from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) that suggests school-level interventions can significantly reduce dating violence among middle school students.
From the blog post:

The NIJ’s study on middle school prevention programs is one of the only studies on the effectiveness of initiatives designed to reduce dating violence among 6th and 7th graders. We hope these findings will allow groups to better optimize their resources and improve the tools they’re using to prevent dating violence.
Relationships early in life can have a lasting impact on the maturation of young people, and the NIJ study is a hopeful sign that a few low-cost initiatives could go a long way to improving the lives of our young people and setting them up for a healthier future.
The multi-level, randomized trial found that:

• School-level interventions such as school-based "boundary agreements," which are akin to restraining orders between students, and increased faculty and security presence in "hot spots" effectively reduced dating violence and sexual harassment — in some cases reducing dating violence by as much as 50 percent.
• Combining these school-level interventions with a classroom-level intervention administered through a six-session curriculum also reduced sexual harassment.
• Classroom-level interventions alone, which included instruction on state laws and penalties, consequences for perpetrators, and the construction of gender roles and healthy relationships, were not effective.

The report goes on to conclude "partner violence is one of our most significant public health problems and that it often begins during adolescence, youth violence prevention work should include activities for preventing this specific form of violence and it should be evaluated for its effectiveness. Also, the limits of adult interventions in domestic violence ... We believe it will be more effective to combat intimate partner violence by refining existing promising primary prevention interventions for our Nation’s youth."
You can read the Dept. of Justice's post here.
Click here to download the full PDF report, Shifting Boundaries: Final Report on an Experimental Evaluation of a Youth Dating Violence Prevention Program in New York City Middle Schools.
Photo by Flickr user Az Jade

For more information on this topic, check out:
Evidence-Based Practices for Children Exposed to Violence: A Selection from Federal Databases
Abusive Teenage Relationships on the Rise