THE SAFE DATES PROJECT - THEORETICAL BASIS, EVALUATION DESIGN, AND SELECTED BASE-LINE FINDINGS

Approximately 20% of adolescents have experienced violence from a dati ng partner. The Safe Dates Project tests the effects of a program on t he primary and secondary prevention of dating violence among adolescen ts living in a rural North Carolina county. The program being evaluate d aims to prevent dating violence by changing dating violence norms, g ender stereotyping, conflict-management skills, help-seeking, and cogn itive factors associated with help-seeking. School activities include a theater production, a 10-session curriculum, and a poster contest. C ommunity activities include special services for adolescents in violen t relationships and community service provider training. A pretest-pos ttest experimental design with random allocation of 14 schools to trea tment condition was used to test study hypotheses. Data were collected in schools using self-administered questionnaires. Eighty-one percent (n = 1,967) of the eighth- and ninth-graders in the county completed baseline questionnaires, and 91% of those adolescents completed follow -up questionnaires. The sample is 75.9% Caucasian and 50.4% female. Ba seline data indicate that 25.4% and 8.0% of this sample have been vict ims of nonsexual and sexual dating violence, respectively, and 14.0% a nd 2.0% have been perpetrators of nonsexual and sexual dating violence , respectively. Consistent with other adolescent dating violence studi es, both boys and girls report being victims and perpetrators of datin g violence. Control and treatment groups are similar at baseline on al l demographic, mediating, and outcome variables. Findings suggest that dating violence is prevalent among adolescents and that prevention pr ograms are warranted. Medical Subject Headings (MeSH): domestic violen ce, adolescence, intervention studies, violence, primary prevention, p revention.