Effectiveness and Evaluation

Effectiveness:

Administrators, faculty, staff and students participating in the program:

1. Develop a prevention focused action plan based on identifying risks for harm, opportunities for prevention and resources to implement the plan
2. Have the confidence and comfort to take action by practicing prevention skills and learning how to define behaviors along a continuum from appropriate to inappropriate to harmful to illegal.
3. Learn critical strategies to deploy in each of these four areas:
   • Screening and selecting employees and volunteers
   • Guidelines on interactions between individuals
   • Monitoring behavior
   • Responding to inappropriate behavior and breaches in policy
4. Understand how policies and practices can be used to help prevent children from being sexually abused and commit to shared responsibility to take action before a child is harmed

Evaluation:

• Prevention Innovations Research Center evaluated the Circles of Safety for Higher Education program. Two key results point to the efficacy of this bystander-focused curriculum:

• Higher overall confidence, comfort and knowledge about recognizing the warning signs of adults’ behavior that may point to sexual interest in children or inappropriate boundaries with children.
• Greater certainty of and comfort in their abilities to take actions to prevent or intervene in situations of child sexual abuse on campus.

For additional information on evaluation results, Prevention Innovations Research Center's evaluation summary, click here.

• "Circles of Safety for Higher Education: Creating the Foundation for Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse." Journal of Campus Title IX Compliance and Best Practices, 2016, Volume 2. Authors: Deborah Donovan Rice, Program Director, Circles of Safety for Higher Education, Victoria Sanders, Ph.D., Assistant Vice Chancellor/Chief EEEO Compliance Officer & State System Title IX Coordinator, Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, Jane G. Stapleton, Co-Director, Prevention Innovations Research Center, Valerie Mercado, Compliance Officer/Title IX Coordinator, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Jennifer Coleman, Director, Stop It Now! 

Abstract: Stop It Now! and the Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education collaborated for a 23-month pilot program to customize the Circles of Safety curriculum for the higher education setting. The program relied on a tiered approach that involved system leadership, 14 individual campus leadership teams, faculty, students, and summer camp directors, as well as representatives from residence life, athletics, student affairs, counseling offices, legal counsel, human resources, communication, health clinics, Greek life, women’s centers, and internship placement. The program’s aim is to empower adults to take responsibility for creating safe conditions on college and university campuses through preventive action. Third-party evaluation has shown its effectiveness in increasing knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Through the Circles of Safety for Higher Education program, Stop It Now! assisted universities in building their capacity to create a culture of prevention on their campuses.

Full article: click here