Evaluation of the Child Safety Matters Curriculum for Improving Knowledge about Victimization among Elementary School Children: A Randomized Trial

ABSTRACT

This project employed a randomized-control design to evaluate the effectiveness of the MBF Child Safety Matters® (CSM) curriculum. Six Georgia schools across 3 counties agreed to participate, and 136 K – 5th grade classrooms were randomized to either receive the CSM curriculum or be a wait-list control and to receive the curriculum after the evaluation. In total, 2,414 students participated at pretest (1195 CSM and 1219 control) and 2,260 participated at posttest (1159 CSM and 1101 control). Pre/posttests were collected from all students prior to the delivery of the CSM curriculum and again approximately a month later to measure knowledge gains related to child safety. Intervention students displayed a greater increase in knowledge for the information taught in the CSM program as compared to students who did not receive the intervention (d = .29).

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual abuse
• prevention
• children
• evaluation
• victimization
• school-based

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Monique Burr Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Erin A. Weeks

Erin Ashley Weeks is a Research Associate in the National SafeCare Training and Research Center (NSTRC), which is housed in the Mark Chaffin Center for Healthy Development in the School of Public Health at Georgia State University, where she works with faculty to coordinate various research studies. Erin's profession interests include child maltreatment prevention and implementation research.

Daniel J. Whitaker

Daniel Whitaker is the Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Affairs, Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Behavioral Sciences in the School of Public Health, and Director of the National SafeCare Training and Research Center (NSTRC), which is housed in the Mark Chaffin Center for Healthy Development in the School of Public Health at Georgia State University. His research interests focus on family violence including child maltreatment prevention and intimate partner violence prevention, with an interest in intervention research and implementation science. As Director of NSTRC, he has overseen the dissemination of SafeCare across the U.S. and internationally.

Stacy Pendarvis

Stacy Pendarvis is the Vice President of Programs for the Monique Burr Foundation for Children where she leads the development of all prevention curricula, trainings, and resources, directs the program evaluation research teams, develops and conducts community and professional trainings, collaborates with a multitude of partners, and works to ensure every child has access to effective, comprehensive, evidence-based prevention programs to help protect them from abuse and victimization.

David Finkelhor

David Finkelhor is the Director of the Crimes against Children Research Center, Co-Director of the Family Research Laboratory and Professor of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire. He has been studying the problems of child victimization, child maltreatment and family violence since 1977. He is well known for his conceptual and empirical work on the problem of child sexual abuse, reflected in publications such as Sourcebook on Child Sexual Abuse (Sage, 1986) and Nursery Crimes (Sage, 1988). He has also written about child homicide, missing and abducted children, children exposed to domestic and peer violence and other forms of family violence.

Carol Neal-Rossi

Carol Neal-Rossi has more than 25 years of experience as an executive, program manager, communications director, and community engagement specialist working with government, industry and community leaders. Her expertise includes child abuse prevention, violence prevention, and advocacy.

Danielle Rivers

Danielle Rivers is a Research Coordinator in the National SafeCare Training and Research Center (NSTRC), which is housed in the Mark Chaffin Center for Healthy Development in the School of Public Health at Georgia State University. Danielle coordinates a grant focused on strengthening the relationship between DFCS and family treatment courts. Her professional interests include child maltreatment prevention, implementation research, and health disparities.