Why promote protective factors

Successful activities for young people focus on how to negotiate and create respectful and ethical sexual encounters, and how to identify and respond to potential abuse situations.

How to promote protective factors

Successful activities teach teenagers and young people:

• positive interpersonal relationship skills
• how to manage conflict and solve problems — eg being assertive and managing anger
• how to seek help
• active bystander skills
• victim empathy
• empathy for sexual partners
• how to recognise and react to potential abuse situations.

Evidence for promoting protective factors

• Need to give youth tools to negotiate and create ethical and respectful sexual encounters — Carmody & Willis (2006), cited in Russell (2008)
• Young people value information about relationships and violence, especially when it is delivered within a safe, ‘clearly boundaried’ environment — Maxwell et al. (2010)
• Skills for teachers include learning ways to support positive behaviour and learning, instructional techniques, and principles of youth development relating to programme strategies — Hassall & Hanna (2007), cited in Russell (2008)

Why challenge cultural norms

Successful activities for young people challenge the social and cultural attitudes and behaviours that normalise sexual violence before they're entrenched.

How to challenge cultural norms

Successful activities for young people:

• challenge gender roles or stereotypes
• challenge social norms around acceptable sexual behaviour
• challenge ideas that violence within intimate or dating relationships is normal
• acknowledge the influence that young people have on each others' behaviour
• reinforce shared norms that support non-violent behaviour.

Subject matter basics

Why include online and social media safety

Online abuse is common among teenagers. Successful activities should help both young people and their parents or caregivers to be aware of the risks and stay safe when using social media and other new technology.

How to include online and social media safety

Successful activities for teenagers and young people:

• have more impact if they focus on fostering social media awareness and online safety instead of monitoring specific sites
• encourage young people and their parents to define and develop healthy relationships in the social media environment, with a focus on empowering young people to make informed decisions about risks and healthy relationships
• use social norms marketing (which includes behaviour change lessons learned from a variety of fields including social marketing, sociology, behavioural psychology and evaluation research) and bystander intervention theory to understand the conditions under which young people are likely to act to prevent online abuse
• ensure initiatives which use any form of technology are youth-driven and youth informed.

Evidence for including online and social media safety

• Support and build media literacy in both young people and their parents/caregivers and foster social media awareness and e-safety — Fairbairn, et al. (2013) (PDF 1.8MB)
• Use social norms marketing and bystander intervention programmes, to understand the conditions under which young people are likely to act to prevent online abuse — Fairbairn et al. (2013) (PDF 1.8MB)
• Ensure any programme which utilises technology is youth-driven — Fairbairn et al. (2013) (PDF 1.8MB)
• Become familiar with the forms and types of technology used by young people, not just social media (e.g., video games, apps, interactive surveys, webinars, wikis, social networking, blogs, geomapping) — Maier (2012)