About This Project
Sexual, physical, and emotional violence destroy lives. Our program is designed to attack this problem as dating relationships and relationship patterns are first formed in adolescence. To prove effective a program must have a long-lasting impact. While our program has demonstrable positive effects, its long term impact is yet to be determined. We will study students through all 4 years of high school to gauge the efficacy of anti-violence education and better understand relationship development.
Ask the Scientists
Join The DiscussionWhat is the context of this research?
Teen dating violence leads to domestic violence. Dating violence prevention programs attack this problem when relationships are first formed and often demonstrate short term effects. Long term effects are rarely studied, making it difficult to determine whether the programs truly prevent dating violence. We need to continue to collect data from students who have had our program as they progress through each grade level and from comparison groups at all grade levels. By doing so we can determine what program effects persist over time. This is the essential portion of our project: to determine the efficacy of our program in truly preventing dating violence. We will then use that data to understand the best way to develop and tailor programs to prevent dating violence.
What is the significance of this project?
This project is critical in determining the long-term effect of our program in reducing victimization of adolescents in dating relationships, increasing healthy dating behaviors, and saving adolescents from the horrors of dating violence and domestic violence. If this program establishes true ability to prevent dating violence in high school students' dating relationships, we will be better positioned to gain funding to spread the program to other schools and communities, making dating relationships safe for generations to come.
What are the goals of the project?
Our immediate goal is to reduce violence in the target population, including sexual, physical and emotional violence, and help adolescents understand how to build healthy relationships. Our target is a 20% long term reduction in dating violence. The data we collect over the next few years will help us understand the long-term impact of anti-violence education and how to improve such educational efforts in order to hit that target. Finally, the survey data we collect will help us better understand how relationships develop, and how individuals develop a sense of community and shared responsibility.
Budget
We need to continue to collect data in Licking Heights High School (LHHS), where we have collected data over the course of the 2014-2015 school year. LHHS, like many schools across the country, cannot cover the cost of the program on their own. In reaching our funding goal of $5000, we will reach additional LHHS students and continue tracking program effects on our earlier participants, critical for determining long-term efficacy. If we exceed our target, and reach $10,000 we will provide the program to Newark High School and begin tracking this group of students. Every $5000 means reaching another school. Repeating our study in many schools is critical in conducting research in order to verify our results. Reaching additional high school students in our community is critical in helping as many teens as possible establish and maintain healthy dating relationships.
Meet the Team
Team Bio
Kelly likes helping people. Nathaniel is a number cruncher. They go together like chocolate and peanut butter...or chocolate and milk...or chocolate and raisins...or chocolate and really anything because chocolate is awesome.
Nathaniel became interested in this project through his work on gender norms, media messaging, and public opinion on issues of sexuality. His main contribution to the project is survey design and implementation as well as quantitative analysis. Kelly has been working with adolescents in central Ohio for 10 years, providing therapy to victims of physical, sexual, and emotional violence and prevention education to high school students in the area. She gets to actually go in and talk to high school students and teach them how to navigate the world of dating and relationships. She seems to enjoy dealing with high school students, and actually finds it rewarding to help them on their journey to adulthood.
Together they make a pretty good team (You know, along with help from OSU, fellow program creator and presenter Jennifer Morris, MVP Velma Farris, and a bunch of awesome high school teachers and administrators.)
Project Backers
- 28Backers
- 50%Funded
- $2,480Total Donations
- $66.43Average Donation