Evaluating Mentors in Violence Prevention: A Longitudinal, Multilevel Assessment of Outcome Changes

Abstract

There is a need to increase understanding of the effectiveness of bystander programmes targeting gender-based violence in the United Kingdom. There is also a need to utilise a robust theoretical models of decision-making while doing so. Changes were examined in bystanders’ attitudes, beliefs, motivations towards intervening, and intervention behavior in situations of gender-based violence. To achieve this, a quantitative examination of Mentors in Violence Prevention was conducted. There were 1396 participants (50% female, 50% male) who were aged 11 to 14 years old (M = 12.25, SD = 0.84) attending high school at the first time point. Participants were attending 17 schools (53% Mentors in Violence Prevention and 47% control) in Scotland. Outcome variables were assessed approximately one year apart using questionnaires. Multilevel linear regressions revealed that Mentors in Violence Prevention did not change outcomes reflecting bystanders’ attitudes, beliefs, motivations towards intervening, or intervention behavior in gender-based violence. Discrepancies between the current findings and those of other evaluations may be due to other studies including small numbers of schools that may be more motivated to implement the program. This study also identified two key issues that need to be addressed at stakeholder level before concluding that Mentors in Violence Prevention is ineffective at targeting gender-based violence. That the program has moved towards a more gender-neutral approach in the United Kingdom could explain the null results of this study. Furthermore, the current findings could be attributed to a failure to adequately address the theoretical model underpinning the program in practice.

The Mentors in Violence Prevention programme: impact on students’ knowledge and attitudes related to violence, prejudice, and abuse, and willingness to intervene as a bystander in secondary schools in England

“…Despite the positive changes observed in mentors’ attitudes, no significant quantifiable impact of the programme was observed for mentees. This is in line with previous evaluations in Scotland and the West Midlands [ 30 , 34 , 46 ]. Two key drivers in bystander behaviour are perceptions of others’ willingness and likeliness to intervene, and leadership skills.…”

“…These findings are in line with other evaluations of MVP elsewhere, and with other similar violence prevention programmes (e.g. Street Doctors) [ 34 , 60 ]. Whilst this may raise a question as to the effectiveness of such programmes, recent work has explored the relevance of Cohen’s conventional effect size cutoffs (small, 0.2; medium, 0.5; and large, 0.8) for school-based interventions and critically, suggests that the conventional thresholds overestimate expected effect sizes in the real-world context of school-based violence prevention programmes [ 61 ].…”

“…racism, county lines, insults, online abuse). Evaluations of MVP in Scotland [ 26 , 34 , 46 ], Sweden [ 29 ], and the West Midlands [ 30 ], have also reported little impact of the programme on gender stereotypes and sexist attitudes. Observations of sessions in Sweden demonstrated that whilst some activities such as the gender box, were reported by students as a fun exercise to discuss what is specific to boys and girls, there was less discussion about how to challenge gender norms [ 29 ].…”

“…More recently the programme has been implemented in Scotland, with initial qualitative evaluations suggesting it is adaptable to a UK school setting and indicating positive perceptions of MVP in terms of recruitment, training, and implementation processes [ 26 , 33 ]. However, the quantitative outcome evaluation did not find any significant positive impact of the programme on students, whether as mentors or mentees [ 34 ]. MVP is now being delivered across several areas in the United Kingdom, particularly via Home Office funded Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) [ 35 , 36 ].…”