A Process Evaluation of a Youth-Led Sexual Violence Prevention Initiative

Abstract

One promising strategy to prevent sexual violence (SV) is to involve youth as leaders in developing prevention initiatives. Few peer-led prevention initiatives have been evaluated; thus, it is particularly important to examine the implementation of such programs in process evaluations. This article describes a process evaluation of a youth-led, community-based SV prevention initiative. Our aims were to (a) track the number and timing of prevention initiative events, (b) assess perceptions of the initiative among youth in the community, (c) evaluate perceived benefits and drawbacks of the initiative among youth who attended events, and (d) explore perceptions of the initiative’s impact among highly involved youth. We used data from multiple sources (i.e., implementation tracking, surveys with youth, semi-structured interviews) and from multiple types of youth (i.e., youth in the general population, youth who attended programming events, and youth who were highly involved, such as completing an internship). The program was highly acceptable to youth. They reported gaining both SV prevention skills (e.g., bystander skills) and more general skills (e.g., leadership, communication) through involvement with the initiative. We identified several key features that contributed to the success of events, such as a supportive and non-judgmental environment, content that felt useful to youth, and time for interaction with peers. However, some challenges such as negative peer behavior at events emerged as potential pitfalls of the initiative. These insights can be used by researchers and practitioners to further develop and refine peer-led prevention initiatives.