Community Education

Primary Prevention Strategies

• Media Literacy:  How Media Shape Our Culture: Media literacy education is a primary prevention strategy that is supported by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the New Jersey Coalition Against Sexual Assault (NJCASA). Media literacy is defined as the ability to think critically about media messaging that is increasingly influencing our attitudes and perceptions. The curriculum for this strategy, GENDER AND VIOLENCE: How Media Shape Our Culture comes as a result of years of research, implementation, and evaluation. The goals of this strategy include; analyze and evaluate media messages about gender and gender-based violence, identify how gender stereotypes in media contribute to institutional gender inequality, describe how power relations influence the concept of gender, and explore the possible linkages between media violence and norms around sexual violence. Media Literacy can be taught in a one dose session (1 hour), or as a 7-9 session curriculum. It is designed for adolescents and college-aged adults but can be adapted for parents and professionals with slight modification.
• Safe Dates: The strategy for addressing healthy, respectful, and abusive relationships is called Safe Dates. The program targets primary and secondary prevention and is aimed at preventing both victimization and perpetration in middle and high school aged children. Safe Dates consists of three programmatic components; a theatrical play, a 10-session curriculum, and a poster contest. The program is based on sound theoretical concepts and has been evaluated as an evidence-based strategy. Significant positive program effects have been seen for psychological dating abuse perpetration, moderate physical dating abuse perpetration, severe physical dating abuse perpetration, sexual dating abuse perpetration, and moderate physical dating abuse victimization. Participants of Safe Dates have reported between 56% and 92% less dating violence victimization and perpetration four years after exposure.
• Bringing in the Bystander:   A bystander strategy aimed at increasing, among potential bystanders and third-person witnesses, prosocial attitudes and behaviors toward and awareness of risky behaviors and precursors to sexual victimization. It also aims to increase empathy and awareness of the problems experienced by those victimized by sexual and intimate partner violence.
• The program emphasizes that all members of the community have a role to play in preventing sexual and intimate partner violence. Bringing in the Bystander is often implemented in a university campus setting to college students. College-age students are part of a population whose age group and environmental setting would expose them to situations in which they might witness potential sexual and intimate partner violence.