Document text
Principal Investigator: Deborah Johnson-Shelton
Organization: SAAVSUS, INC.
Fiscal Year: 2024
Award: $960,153
Funding agency: National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
ABSTRACT
Child abuse, peer violence, and injury continue to be major public health challenges, jeopardizing the healthy development of millions of American children every day. Post-pandemic, elementary schools are reporting significant delays in children’s social development, as well as higher rates of harmful internal and externalizing behaviors. Child bullying by peers is linked to psychosis by late childhood and adolescence, harming school outcomes due to higher absenteeism, reduced classroom attentiveness, increased school drop-out, and greater risk for teen substance abuse, delinquency, and violent behavior.
Demand for effective prevention of bullying, sexual abuse, child abduction/trafficking, and abuse have grown over the past two decades, with many states mandating school-based programs to help reverse violent and other adverse behaviors among children in schools. Currently, only 25% of school-based prevention programs have been shown to be somewhat effective in reducing peer violence. Also, most successful bullying prevention programs do not align with nationally recommended safety guidelines deemed essential for effectively protecting children from abuse, bullying and other forms of violence. The radKIDS® Personal Empowerment and Safety Education Program is a school-based program developed in response to these national recommendations. radKIDS® uses activity-based skill training to help elementary aged children develop personal safety boundaries, critical thinking skills for responding to threats of danger, age-appropriate coping strategies for dealing with current and past victimization, self-assertiveness and physical skills for self-defense, communication skills for reporting incidences to parents/adults, and increasing child self-worth—the program’s cornerstone for personal safety and healthy development for elementary students.
Within Phase I, we showed that online training, with enhanced student curriculum, met all benchmarks in instructor self-efficacy, knowledge gains, and program usability, acceptability, user satisfaction, consumer satisfaction, and fidelity of implementation. Within Phase II, our goals are to: 1) Complete full adaptation of radKIDS® instructor training and student instruction into a blended online/in-person instructor training and instructional delivery system that can be used for broad-scale dissemination among low income and rural elementary schools, and 2) Conduct a clustered randomized trial with 40 elementary school, with one 4th grade classrooms per school, in the states of California, Oregon, and Florida. We will assess a) student growth in knowledge, safety skill self-efficacy, confidence in help-seeking and in maintaining personal safety, and child self-esteem, and b) levels of instructor knowledge of student personal safety domains, usability of program, acceptability of program, consumer satisfaction, and fidelity of implementation. Exit interviews will be conducted with school administrators to assess program satisfaction and strategies for adoption and full implementation in schools. If the modified program is effective and practical for use in schools, wide-spread implementation as a result of effective marketing could have a large impact on public health by decreasing incidents and risks of harm and reducing child trauma due to preventable violence, abuse, and injury.
Terms: <0-11 years old><12-20 years old><21+ years old><4th grade><Absenteeism><Address><Administrator><Adolescence><Adoption><Adult><Adult Human><Age><American><Assertiveness><Behavior><Benchmarking><Best Practice Analysis><Burden on their caregivers><COVID crisis><COVID epidemic><COVID pandemic><COVID-19 crisis><COVID-19 epidemic><COVID-19 era><COVID-19 global health crisis><COVID-19 global pandemic><COVID-19 health crisis><COVID-19 pandemic><COVID-19 period><COVID-19 public health crisis><COVID-19 years><California><Caregiver Burden><Child><Child Youth><Childhood><Children (0-21)><Cluster randomization trial><Cluster randomized trial><Communication><Communities><Complex thinking><Consumer Satisfaction><Coping Skills><Critical Thinking><Curriculum><Development><Distance Learning><Distress><Education><Education Module><Educational Curriculum><Educational Module><Educational aspects><Emotional><Evaluation><Evaluative Thinking><Evidence based program><Faculty Education><Faculty Training><Family><Generalized Growth><Geography><Goals><Growth><Guidelines><Health><Hour><Incidence><Injury><Instruction><Intervention><Intervention Strategies><Interview><Knowledge><Learning><Learning Module><Link><Low income><Marketing><Measurement><Measures><Minority><Multimedia><Multimedium><Oregon><Outcome><Parents><Persons><Phase><Prevention><Prevention program><Privatization><Program Acceptability><Program Effectiveness><Psychoses><Public Health><Randomized><Recommendation><Reporting><Risk><Rural><SARS-CoV-2 epidemic><SARS-CoV-2 global health crisis><SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic><SARS-CoV-2 pandemic><SARS-coronavirus-2 epidemic><SARS-coronavirus-2 pandemic><SBIR><Safety><Sampling><School Drop-Outs><School Dropouts><Schools><Self Efficacy><Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoV 2 epidemic><Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoV 2 pandemic><Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 epidemic><Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic><Sexual abuse><Small Business Innovation Research><Small Business Innovation Research Grant><Student Dropouts><Students><Substance abuse problem><System><Teacher Education><Teacher Educator><Teacher Preparation><Teacher Professional Development><Teacher Training><Teaching Module><Teen><Teenagers><Texas><Tissue Growth><Training><Training Programs><Utah><Victimization><Violence><abuse of substances><adolescence (12-20)><adolescent victimization><adulthood><aged><ages><benchmark><bully><bullying><bullying prevention><burden in caregivers><burden of their caregivers><burden on caregivers><child and adolescent victimization><child victimization><commercial application><coping strategy><coronavirus disease 2019 crisis><coronavirus disease 2019 epidemic><coronavirus disease 2019 global health crisis><coronavirus disease 2019 global pandemic><coronavirus disease 2019 health crisis><coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic><coronavirus disease 2019 public health crisis><coronavirus disease crisis><coronavirus disease epidemic><coronavirus disease pandemic><coronavirus disease-19 global pandemic><coronavirus disease-19 pandemic><developmental><effectiveness testing><elementary school><empowerment><experience><externalizing behavior><faculty development><faculty professional development><field based data><field learning><field study><field test><flexibility><flexible><fourth grade><grade school><help seeking><help-seeking behavior><implementation fidelity><improved><injuries><instructor><instructor training><interventional strategy><kids><lesson plans><member><minority student><multidisciplinary><ontogeny><pandemic><pandemic disease><parent><pediatric><peer victimization><phase 2 study><phase II study><post-pandemic><prevent><prevent bullying><prevent violence><preventing><programs><psychosocial stresses><psychosocial stressors><randomisation><randomization><randomly assigned><remote learning><response><safety education><satisfaction><self esteem><severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 global health crisis><severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 global pandemic><sex abuse><sexually abused><skills><skills training><social><substance abuse><teacher development><teen years><teenage><trafficking><traumatized children><usability><violence prevention><violent><violent behavior><youngster><youth victimization>