The Prevention Education Program at PARC offers several educational programs focused on the prevention of sexual assault. The program is dedicated to meeting the needs of schools, youth-serving organizations, civic organizations, and the community at large. This goal is accomplished in three parts. The first part involves the CDC’s Rape Prevention Education program, Childhelp’s ® Speak Up Be Safe, and finally through Community-Based Awareness Programming.

Rape Prevention Education (RPE)

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) role in sexual violence prevention is unique; no other federal agency is working to advance the primary prevention of sexual violence—to prevent violence before it begins. By working to prevent sexual violence before it begins, RPE grantees have reached out to new audiences including coaches, boys and men, and the entertainment industry, and have developed innovative prevention strategies, which have spread across the country.”

Nine Principles of Effective Prevention Programs:

1. Comprehensive: Strategies should include multiple components and affect multiple settings to address a wide range of risk and protective factors of the target problem.

2. Varied Teaching Methods: Strategies should include multiple teaching methods, including some type of active, skills-based component.

3. Sufficient Dosage: Participants need to be exposed to enough of the activity for it to have an effect.

4. Theory-Driven: Preventive strategies should have a scientific justification or logical rationale.

5. Positive Relationships: Programs should foster strong, stable, positive relationships between children and adults.

6. Appropriately Timed: Program activities should happen at a time (developmentally) that can have maximal impact in a participant’s life.

7. Socio-Culturally Relevant: Programs should be tailored to fit within cultural beliefs and practices of specific groups as well as local community norms.

8. Outcome Evaluation: A systematic outcome evaluation is necessary to determine whether a program or strategy worked.

9. Well-Trained Staff: Programs need to be implemented by staff members who are sensitive, competent, and have received sufficient training, support, and supervision.