# Prevention – Training Subcommittee Recommendations

Programs to prevent:  The term **programs to prevent**refers to comprehensive educational and training programs intended to prevent violence that incorporate diverse approaches that are culturally relevant, inclusive of diverse communities and identities, sustainable, responsive to community needs, and consider risk and protective factors as they occur on the individual, relationship, community and societal levels.

Primary prevention:  The term **primary prevention**refers to programming, initiatives and strategies intended to stop domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking before it occurs to prevent initial perpetration or victimization through the promotion of positive and healthy behaviors and beliefs.  Efforts to change behavior and social norms, and promote healthy relationships, healthy sexuality and egalitarian gender roles, or efforts to understand risk factors and protective factors for bystander inaction and change social norms around bystander inaction are all examples of primary prevention.

Awareness programs:  The term **awareness programs**refers to programs, campaigns, or initiatives that increase audience knowledge of the issues of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking and share information and resources to prevent interpersonal violence, promote safety, and reduce perpetration.  These efforts can include campus communitywide mobilizations as well as targeted audience-specific programming (including both students and employees).  Awareness month campaigns, “Speak Outs,” rallies or marches, informational poster campaigns or resource websites, and educational programming that focus on sharing resources and information about these issues are examples of awareness programs.

Bystander intervention:  The term **bystander intervention**refers to safe and positive options that may be carried out by an individual or individuals to prevent harm or intervene in situations of potential harm when there is a risk of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking against a person other than the individual.  Effective bystander intervention training prepares participants to recognize situations of potential harm, overcome barriers to intervening, identify safe and effective intervention options, and take action.

Risk reduction:  The term **risk reduction**refers to approaches that seek to mitigate risk factors that may increase the likelihood of perpetration, victimization, or bystander inaction.  Risk reduction focuses on helping individuals and communities address the institutional structures or cultural conditions that facilitate SV, DV & stalking to increase safety.  Examples of risk reduction may include but are not limited to general crime prevention education, campus escort programs, programs that educate on how to create individual and community safety plans and strategies, and bystander intervention programs that educate the campus on how to recognize and interrupt situations of harm, or implementing a communications system that can notify the entire campus community of immediate threats to security.

Ongoing awareness and prevention campaigns:  The term **ongoing awareness and prevention campaigns**refers to campaigns that are sustained over time focusing on increasing awareness or understanding of topics relevant to SA, DV and stalking prevention.  These programs will occur at different levels throughout the institution (i.e., faculty, athletics, incoming students) and will utilize a range of strategies.  Ongoing awareness and prevention campaigns may include information about what constitutes sexual assault, dating violence/intimate partner abuse, and stalking, changing social norms, promoting recognition of perpetrator tactics, enhancing understanding of consent, and advancing prosocial behaviors of individuals and communities.  Effective ongoing awareness and prevention campaigns will include developmentally appropriate content for the specific audience and their knowledge and awareness level and provide positive and concrete ways for individuals to get involved.