Dating CAFE Ambassador Programme: Chinese College Students to Help Peers in Dating Violence

Abstract

Dating violence prevention programs have been understudied in Asia, including China. The current study sought to evaluate the feasibility of the Dating Compassion, Assessment, reFerral, and Education (CAFE) Ambassador Programme in China. This program is designed to enhance the behavioral intentions of Chinese students to help peers who are experiencing dating violence and to compare students’ attitudes toward dating violence, students’ subjective norms about helping peers, and students’ perceived behavioral control in helping peers before and after attending the 7.5 hour program. A quasi-experimental design was used, including two student groups ( n = 85) assessed at baseline and 3-month follow-up. Quantitative pre- and postintervention measurements, in conjunction with qualitative focus group interviews, were used to evaluate the program’s effectiveness. The findings indicated a significant enhancement in the behavioral intentions of participants in the intervention group to help peers experiencing dating violence, a stronger subjective norm regarding helping others, and an enhanced sense of perceived behavioral control to help, compared with the control group, over time. Focus group data revealed that students who participated in the program developed a more comprehensive definition of dating violence, increased awareness of dating violence in peers, a shift in their focus concerning the role of intention in dating violence and felt more responsible for helping their peers. The findings support the effectiveness of the Dating CAFE Ambassador Programme.

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials for Intimate Partner Violence: The Effects of the Programs Based on Their Purposes

“…Such bystander interventions were considered more meaningful in that they have less tendency to victim-blame and emphasize the community’s engagement and responsibility for IPV issues (Banyard et al, 2004). “Green Dot” (Coker et al, 2019), “CAFE” (Dating Compassion, Assessment, reFerral, and Education; Wong et al, 2019), “Red Flag Campaign” (Borsky et al, 2018), “Safe Sisters” (Feldwisch, 2017), and “With-You Education” (Park & Kim, 2021) are examples of bystander intervention programs. In these programs, bystander knowledge and skills were often taught to improve bystander attitudes (e.g., intent to help) and behaviors (e.g., intervening in the IPV situation) (Feldwisch, 2017; Rothman et al, 2018).…”

Nursing research on intimate partner violence in China: A scoping review

“…Mixed methods studies as complex study designs were adopted in Hong Kong [24 , 83 , 102 , 103] and Taiwan [65 , 66] , which had a descriptive, correlational, or quasi-experimental quantitative strand mixed with a qualitative strand in various ways. A recent study from Hong Kong evaluated the Dating Compassion, Assessment, reFerral, and Education (CAFE) Ambassador Programme, a primary prevention program aiming to enhance behavioral intentions of college students to help peers experiencing dating violence, with a quasi-experimental study and qualitative evaluation using focus groups [103] .…”

“…Mixed methods studies as complex study designs were adopted in Hong Kong [24 , 83 , 102 , 103] and Taiwan [65 , 66] , which had a descriptive, correlational, or quasi-experimental quantitative strand mixed with a qualitative strand in various ways. A recent study from Hong Kong evaluated the Dating Compassion, Assessment, reFerral, and Education (CAFE) Ambassador Programme, a primary prevention program aiming to enhance behavioral intentions of college students to help peers experiencing dating violence, with a quasi-experimental study and qualitative evaluation using focus groups [103] . However, the specific type of mixed methods design, justification for using a mixed methods approach, and integration of quantitative and qualitative findings were lacking or insufficient in studies from Hong Kong; no studies from Taiwan explicitly described their methodology as mixed methods, nor did they sufficiently report integration of quantitative and qualitative data.…”

Development and Validation of the Bystander Engagement Scale for Witnessed Intimate Partner Violence: A South Korean Version

“…Participants might indicate they did not intervene because they have never witnessed such an event (Mennicke et al, 2022). In response to this challenge, some studies have been, alternatively, designed to measure bystander efficacy (Stojanov et al, 2021), bystander readiness to help and act (Rothman et al, 2018), and behavioral intention to intervene (Wong et al, 2019) as predictors of bystander behaviors. According to a recent review, most existing bystander intervention scales tend to measure the bystanders’ intent, willingness, and likelihood to intervene rather than their actual behaviors (Mennicke et al, 2022).…”