We talk to a lot of people who focus their prevention efforts within schools, and who want to maintain that audience while incorporating community-level prevention into their work. There are many long-standing prevention programs and curricula that are evidence-based, yet only reach young people at the individual and relationship levels of the social ecology. As our field continues to promote community-level prevention as an important element of this work, what can prevention staff working within schools do to bring the community level into their work?
First, we need to understand what community-level prevention is and what it could look like within a school system. Prevention at this level involves changing the broader conditions in a community to prevent sexual violence. Within a school, this means addressing social and environmental factors that impact the entire community, rather than focusing on individual behavior. A litmus test we frequently use when determining whether something is community-level prevention is: Does the entire community benefit from the prevention work that was done, even if they have no idea it took place? If the answer is “Yes,” then most likely this is community level prevention!
Next, we need to use this knowledge to find opportunities to stretch to the community level. This is where facilitation skills come in. As people doing prevention work, we have a great deal of knowledge behind us – a whole repository of theories, ideas, and examples! We can remember the elements of community-level prevention and offer them as options throughout our prevention programming. During discussions and workshops, our antennas can pick up on opportunities for community-level change and be prepared to make suggestions. But what does that look like? Walk through this decision-making scenario to try out your skills!
Scenario: A local high school is using Coaching Boys Into Men (CBIM) for their prevention work. The coaches lead the athletes through a brief CBIM session before their twice-weekly practice. The students enjoy the sessions and have been talking about how everyone else in the school should also have CBIM sessions, because the school climate is problematic – lots of girls are shamed for their clothes, and teachers don’t take harassment or jokes seriously. The prevention educator who works with the coaches says it’s a nice idea, but CBIM is specifically designed for student athletes, and not everyone in the school is part of a sports team.
The students are saying the school climate is problematic because girls are shamed for their clothes, and teachers don’t take harassment or jokes seriously.
These statements are different from hearing that one person is experiencing harassment – they sound like widespread issues. These are also issues typically shaped by a school (or school district) policy or rule as well as staff enforcement.
Additionally, you might have noticed that the prevention staff in this example gives a response that highlights the limited scope of CBIM. We can use our knowledge of what is possible in community-level prevention to notice these moments where more systemic issues are being brought up, and use that as an opportunity to stretch our work into the community level.
There are many opportunities here for community-level prevention. These would fall outside of the scope of CBIM, but since the prevention staff already is working within the school system, it could be possible to expand the prevention program to include more community-level efforts. (Tip: When creating a prevention program or partnership agreement, it can be helpful to include opportunities for adjusting your work as you go!)
- Since shaming girls because of their clothing was mentioned, this may be a good opportunity to work with students, staff, and parents to update the school’s dress code and dress code enforcement to make sure it is free from bias and discrimination.
- Students can help create and lead training for teachers and staff about dress code enforcement.
- Further, if the school has a student bill of rights, students could work to update that to set community standards about jokes and harassment, as well as create and lead other teacher training on how to respond to harassment and “jokes.” (If the school or district does not have a student bill of rights, that could be another opportunity for community-level prevention)
- If harassment is happening in only certain classrooms or parts of the school, using hot-spot mapping can help gather data about possible places where environmental prevention could be used to change the norms.
- Dress code policy https://garfieldptsa.org/sps-new-inclusive-dress-policy/
- Hot spot mapping https://www.preventconnect.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/PreventConnect-Guest-Profile-Hotspot-Mapping.pdf
- Protective school environment for LGBTQ youth https://www.valor.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/VALOR-Training-1.pdf
Do you know a school-based prevention program doing community level work? Let us know! prevention@nsvrc-respecttogether.org