These tools provide examples of the activities possible at each level of the spectrum of prevention. TCFV is here as a resource for the development, evaluation, and implementation of your prevention programming. Please contact us for more information about sample activities or prevention tools.

Level One: Individual knowledge and skills

Working at the individual level is a key element of primary prevention, and it is a level of prevention many programs are already familiar with. There are many ways prevention programming can focus on addressing the root causes of violence in a community. A community may identify tools such as curricula, programs, or presentations to enhance an individual’s ability to prevent violence from occurring.

Tools:

Level Two: Promoting community education

Community education focuses on reaching a broad community audience with information promoting the prevention of interpersonal violence. Working with your community partners can help to identify community resources, best methods of communication, and new prevention methods for reaching the broader community. Community education is an opportunity to reach the greatest number of community members with compelling and important messages.

Tools:
My Strength
My Strength is a campaign created by the D.C. based group Men Can Stop Rape. The Campaign has many components including Strength Trainings, Awareness-to-Action Workshops, Community Strength Projects, and a Strength Mediaworks Campaign, all of which are designed to address different levels of the social-ecological model. The Strength Mediaworks Campaign is a popular example of an innovative community education campaign.

Social Norms Approaches can be used as a community education or awareness tool to promote positive norms.
A Social Norms Approach to Prevention
National Social Norms Institute

Level Three: Educating Providers

Educating providers is an important step in primary prevention; providers are an influential group in any community. Providers educated on family violence can assist in primary prevention efforts by promoting the adoption of positive behaviors, contributing to community dialogue, and even becoming community educators themselves!

Tools:
Expect Respect
The Expect Respect program includes training materials/sessions for teachers and school counselors.

The Mendez Foundation
Provides and strongly recommends a 1 or 2-day curriculum training to motivate teachers and enhance implementation fidelity. The foundation also offers a staff development curriculum to help educators create an optimal school climate.

Level Four: Fostering coalitions and networks

Coalitions and networks are opportunities for collaborative planning, communal problem-solving, and group efforts to develop policy. Through coalitions and networks, the voices of community members are represented in the efforts to prevent interpersonal violence.

Tools:
Steps for Community Engagement
These 10 easy steps can help you to plan for and move through a community engagement strategy that brings community members together for learning, strategizing, and implementing primary prevention efforts.

Mapping Community Partners
This tool can help in identifying the diverse groups that help make up your community. Identifying influential community members like key service providers, social networks, and institutions can help in developing and sustaining your primary prevention efforts. Community partners can help you to reach your goals!

 

Level Five: Changing organizational practices

Primary prevention at this level includes identifying areas within organizations or institutions where primary prevention principles can be integrated. Adoption of such principles may lead to improved norms and safety for the staff and others in contact with the organization. Organizational change in agencies such as schools, health centers, or law enforcement agencies can affect change community-wide.

Tools:
Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence

Safe at Work Coalition

Level Six: Influencing Policy and Legislation

Prevention work can take place at the level of policy and legislation. Policy and legislation “set the rules” for how a community is expected to behave. Policies and laws that support positive norms and decrease risk factors for interpersonal violence can support prevention work and help prevent violence from ever occurring.

Tools:
A Guide to Addressing Dating Violence in Texas Schools
The Texas Dating Violence Prevention Team, a group of non-profits and government agencies, developed A Guide to Addressing Dating Violence in Schools by pulling from several national model programs. It is intended to help supplement school district’s new dating violence policies with information about creating a comprehensive response to dating violence.

Gloucester, Massachusetts Domestic Violence-Free Zone Declaration

Cambridge, Massachusetts Domestic Violence-Free Zone Activities