Preliminary Evaluation of the SafeBAE Youth-Developed Sexual Violence Prevention Summit

ABSTRACT

The current study evaluates a single-day youth-designed sexual assault prevention summit for adolescents. Attendees (N = 284) completed pre-and post-summit surveys addressing 1) confidence in consent knowledge; 2) perceived capability to respond to someone who was assaulted or harassed; 3) awareness of Title IX rights; 4) perceived capacity to get help for a survivor; 5) perceived acceptability of sexual coercion; 6) endorsement of belief that it is wrong to stop sexual activity once it starts; 7) perceived seriousness of sharing nude photos without permission; and, 8) perceived prevalence of false accusations of sexual violence. At post-summit, participants reported increased perceived confidence in consent knowledge, increased perceived capacity to respond to a survivor, increased awareness of Title IX rights, and increased perceived capacity to get help for a survivor. Both perceived acceptability of sexual coercion and endorsement of the belief that someone should not stop sexual activity decreased at post-summit. Findings provide preliminary support for a youth-developed sexual assault prevention summit.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual violence
• adolescents
• opinion leaders
• prevention

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical standards and informed consent

The current data was collected as a part of program evaluation within the SafeBAE organization. The data was collected for quality improvement purposes, and responses were anonymous. It was deemed at a later date that it would be useful to share the quality improvement data with the public, and IRB approval was garnered for reporting the anonymous survey responses via a research report.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse [K99DA057993].

Notes on contributors

Prachi H. Bhuptani

Prachi H. Bhuptani Department of Adult Psychiatry, Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, Rhode Island, USA, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA; Shael Norris, SafeBAE, USA; Lindsay M. Orchowski, Department of Adult Psychiatry, Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, Rhode Island, USA, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, Dr. Bhuptani’s effort on this publication was supported by the National Institute of Drug Abuse Award Number K99DA057993 (PI: Bhuptani). Prachi H. Bhuptani. is a Staff Psychologist and Investigator at Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University. Her research focuses on the experiences of shame and stigma and their impact following sexual victimization.

Shael Norris

Shael Norris is Co-Founder/Executive Director at SafeBAE. Shael Norris has dedicated her career to ending sexual violence and is passionate about empowering young people to be change agents in preventing violence.

Lindsay M. Orchowski

Lindsay M. Orchowski is a Staff Psychologist and Professor (Research) at Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University. Her research program centers around the development and evaluation of sexual assault prevention programs.