Dating Violence Prevention for Juvenile Justice Girls
Location(s): United States
Description
Research is urgently needed to rigorously test a skills-based intervention for dating violence prevention among juvenile justice girls. Court-involved, non-incarcerated (CINI) girls represent a particularly high-risk group for dating violenc exposure. This is due to the multiple risk factors they possess that have demonstrated associations with teen dating violence outcomes in other high-risk adolescent female populations. Despite the critical need for these young women to learn strategies that offset their heightened risk for involvement in coercive romantic relationships, no such evidence-based interventions exist for this population. The goal of the current study is to establish the efficacyof Date SMART, a theoretically-driven skills-based intervention, in reducing dating violence, sexual risk behavior, and delinquency among girls in the juvenile justice system.