A violence-prevention and evaluation project with ethnically diverse populations

The purpose of this paper is to describe some of the challenges encountered and lessons learned while providing and evaluating a violence-prevention p rogram for and with ethnically diverse populations in child care settings. The paper discusses Safe Start, a violence prevention education program for child care staff and parents, and the evaluation of the program. Safe Star t was designed to include culturally relevant: content to increase cultural awareness for child care staff and parents from diverse ethnic backgrounds . The evaluation project enrolled child care centers with families represen ting the ethnically diverse communities in which they were located. Violenc e prevention research involving children from diverse ethnic backgrounds pr esents new methodologic challenges, but also provides new opportunities for creative, novel methods. This paper describes some of the challenges encou ntered with curriculum development, staff recruitment, instrument selection , and data collection procedures.