Promoting young children’s interpersonal safety knowledge, intentions, confidence, and protective behavior skills: Outcomes of a randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Promoting young children's interpersonal safety knowledge, intentions confidence and skills is the goal of many child maltreatment prevention programs; however, evaluation of their effectiveness has been limited. In this study, a randomized controlled trial was conducted examining the effectiveness of the Australian protective behaviors program, Learn to be safe with Emmy and friends™ compared to a waitlist condition. In total, 611 Australian children in Grade 1 (5-7 years; 50% male) participated, with assessments at Pre-intervention, Post-intervention and a 6-month follow-up. This study also included a novel assessment of interpersonal safety skills through the Observed Protective Behaviors Test (OPBT). Analyses showed participating in Learn to be safe with Emmy and friends™ was effective post-program in improving interpersonal safety knowledge (child and parent-rated) and parent-rated interpersonal safety skills. These benefits were retained at the 6-month follow-up, with participating children also reporting increased disclosure confidence. However, Learn to be safe with Emmy and friends™ participation did not significantly impact children's disclosure intentions, safety identification skills, or interpersonal safety skills as measured by the OPBT. Future research may seek to evaluate the effect of further parent and teacher integration into training methods and increased use of behavioral rehearsal and modelling to more effectively target specific disclosure intentions and skills.

Sexual Abuse Prevention Education in Australian Primary Schools: A National Survey of Programs

“…However, only one program was shown to have been rigorously evaluated using a quasi-experimental method (Michaelson, 2001). Subsequent to the data collection period, we are aware that one other program has been evaluated in a fully experimental randomized controlled trial (White, Shanley, Zimmer-Gembeck, Lines, Walsh, & Hawkins, 2016; White, Shanley, Zimmer-Gembeck, Walsh, Hawkins, & Lines, 2018; White, Shanley, Zimmer-Gembeck, Walsh, Hawkins, Lines, & Webb, 2018).…”

Teaching Youth to Resist Abuse: Evaluation of a Strengths-Based Child Maltreatment Curriculum for High School Students

“…There are numerous programs designed to address CM, many of which have promising results; likewise, there are some common limitations (Walsh et al 2015). As previously discussed, many CM prevention programs are single-harm focused, and may overlook other forms of CM (White et al 2018). The single-harm focus could represent a missed opportunity for improving child wellbeing and reducing CM.…”

“…The single-harm focus could represent a missed opportunity for improving child wellbeing and reducing CM. Given that single-harm focused programs often emphasize similar skills (e.g., identifying safe situations and developing interpersonal skills), integrating multiple prevention programs may be more efficient (White et al 2018). There is a tremendous need for programming related to neglect, as there are no manualized evidence-based school programs for the prevention of psychological effects of physical neglect (Brassard and Fiorvanti 2015).…”

Outcomes of In Situ Training for Disclosure as a Standalone and a Booster to a Child Protective Behaviors Education Program

“…In five 1-hour sessions conducted in schools, this program includes the discussion of how to identify unsafe situations, how to identify unsafe secrets, and when, to whom, and how to disclose to adults. Past evaluations have found Learn to be safe with Emmy and friends ™ increases protective behaviors knowledge in children aged 5–7 years of age compared to children in waitlist classrooms (Dale et al, 2016) or schools (White et al, 2018b). Evaluations have also found that children improve over time in protective behaviors/disclosure intentions, disclosure confidence, and ability to identify unsafe situations (Dale et al, 2016; White et al, 2018b).…”

“…Past evaluations have found Learn to be safe with Emmy and friends ™ increases protective behaviors knowledge in children aged 5–7 years of age compared to children in waitlist classrooms (Dale et al, 2016) or schools (White et al, 2018b). Evaluations have also found that children improve over time in protective behaviors/disclosure intentions, disclosure confidence, and ability to identify unsafe situations (Dale et al, 2016; White et al, 2018b). However, generally these improvements over time have not differed significantly between intervention and waitlist control groups.…”