Effective Empowerment-Based Training Is One Approach Identified in CDC’s STOP-SV Technical Package as Part of Comprehensive, Multi-Sector Prevention of Sexual Violence: A Response to Ullman(2020)

ABSTRACT

In this response to Sarah Ullman’s 2020 Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment, and Trauma article, Rape Resistance: A Critical Piece of all Women’s Empowerment and Holistic Rape Prevention, the author highlights the importance of a holistic and comprehensive strategy for sexual violence prevention that involves many approaches across the social ecological model, as outlined in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s STOP SV technical package, including effective empowerment-based training approaches. She describes that more work is needed to evaluate and identify evidence-based approaches, including those that address prevention within marginalized groups and those grassroots approaches that are already being implemented but have not been evaluated. She ends by stressing that the field has much to gain from this kind of collective, multi-sector effort.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual violence
• exposure to violence
• assessment/evaluation
• sexual assault
• sexual abuse
• rape
• empowerment
• prevention

Disclaimer

The findings and conclusions in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Sarah DeGue for helpful input.

Disclosure statement

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