Recorded presentation

Jana Sczersputowski, BA, Educational Message Services, Inc., 2300 Alessandro Drive, Suite 100, Ventura, CA 93001, 805.653.6000, jana@emsmail.org and Lisa Gilbert, MPH, Santa Barbara County Public Health Department, 1111 Chapala Street Suite 200, Santa Barbara, CA 93101.

To accomplish the goal of diminishing attitudes and normative beliefs that contribute to social environments conducive to intimate partner violence, Santa Barbara County Public Health Department implemented the SHARe The Word Project, a program targeted towards teenagers. Peer Education, Social Marketing, and a combination of both interventions, were provided on six high school campuses. All aimed to educate students about: 1) the difference between abusive and healthy relationships; 2) signs, symptoms, and consequences of abusive relationships; 3) attitudes and normative beliefs underlying abuse and violence; and 4) where teens can turn for help. Using a quasi-experimental, within-subjects design, changes in knowledge and attitudes regarding relationship violence were compared across intervention conditions and a control condition. Students were tested before and after each intervention. Students that did not receive an intervention were also pre and post tested over the same period of time.

Results of the evaluation conducted by UCSB’s Center for School-Based Youth Development indicated that students in the peer education and combined conditions positively shifted their knowledge and attitudes from pre to post test significantly more than students who received no intervention. The combined condition showed the most significant change, which supports the hypothesis that social marketing images, messages and resource cards, placed in public private spaces on school campuses, serve to reinforce and complement education provided in classrooms by trained teenage Peer Educators. The two combined interventions appear to work together to create a social environment more conducive for Safe Healthy Adolescent Relationships.

Learning Objectives: Identify at least three ways a relationship violence prevention social marketing campaign can influence social environments in school settings. Identify what outcome expectations are appropriate and will yield positive results for the following three different intervention conditions

• Social Marketing Condition;
• Peer Education condition; and
• the combined Social Marketing and Peer Education condition. Identify three possible reasons why the combined Social Marketing and Peer Education condition was most effective in shifting knowledge and attitudes, as compared to the other stand-alone intervention conditions evaluated in the SHARe The Word Domestic Violence Prevention Project.

Keywords: Public Health Education and Health Promotion, School-Based Programs

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: Educational Message Services served as a subcontractor to Santa Barbara County Health Department with respect to the development and implementation of social marketing components.

Recorded presentation