Preventing Sexual Violence Through a Comprehensive, Peer-led Initiative

The purpose of this multiple baseline study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a comprehensive youth-led sexual violence (SV) prevention program, Youth Voices in Prevention (Youth VIP). The prevention program builds on youth-adult partnerships among middle and high school students in Rapid City, South Dakota. Consenting students will take part in a youth summit where they will be trained as popular opinion leaders to spread SV prevention messages among middle and high school youth and parents. Following the summit, youth will work in small groups focused on different aspects of evidence-based prevention strategies including bystander intervention, social marketing messaging, parent education, norms change, and social emotional learning. Multiple research methods will be used to examine implementation process and cost. In addition, consenting students will take six surveys across three years including several surveys before programming begins, and several to document Youth VIP outcomes after prevention programming takes place. Survey data from a demographically similar community will be used to assess changes over time among youth in Rapid City, SD. All phases of the project will be implemented with collaboration from a Research Programming Advisory Board of community members and professionals from Rapid City, SD.