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Abstract
Communities increasingly are recognizing that intimate partner violence is a significant risk to the mental and physical health of adolescents. In response to this concern, a number of manualized adolescent dating violence prevention programs have been developed and disseminated. Although many of these programs have received empirical support, reviews of the dating violence prevention literature reveal a number of shortcomings of these efforts, particularly an absence of attention to issues of diversity. We discuss how the effectiveness of dating violence prevention programs can be enhanced by increasing their attention to issues of diversity among participants, including the dimensions of ethnicity, gender, social class, culture, developmental level, and the unique needs of at-risk youth. Using examples from our own experience in implementing the Expect Respect program, we propose practical strategies to increase the flexibility, creativity, and adaptability of dating violence prevention efforts.
Notes
Portions of this article are based on a presentation given at the International Conference on Violence Against Women: Diversifying Social Responses, Montreal, Quebec, March 2006, the proceedings of which were published as Kerig, P. K., Volz, A. R., Moeddel, M. A., & Cuellar, R. E. (2008). Amélioration des efforts de prevention de la violence dans les frequentations Amoureuses grâce au souci de la diversité, à la souplesse et à la creativité: Aperçu de la mise en œuvre du programme Expect Respect [Enhancing dating violence prevention efforts through increasing diversity, flexibility, and creativity]. In S. Arcand, D. Damant, S. Gravel, & É. Harper (Eds.), Violences faites aux femme [Violence against women] (pp. 273–298). Montreal, Canada: Presses de l'Université du Quebéc.