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Guide
to Effective Programs
for Children and Youth |
Safe Child Program
(Formerly known as “Children Need to Know Personal Safety Program”)
OVERVIEW
The Children Need to Know Personal Safety Program was a child abuse prevention program that used role-playing to protect the safety of children by decreasing their risk of abduction and abuse by a stranger. The program was evaluated once right after the intervention and then again six months later. The results of both evaluations show the effectiveness of the child abuse prevention program at teaching the children skills to decrease their risk of being abused and abducted. In 1994, the program was updated and is now called Safe Child Program.
The program consisted of 8 20-minute classroom sessions focused on helping children to protect their personal safety by teaching them rules about what to do when a caretaking adult was not around. The rules were: (1) Stay an arm’s reach away. (2) Don’t talk or answer questions. (3) Don’t take anything. (4) Don’t go anywhere. The program provided opportunities for the children to practice those rules through role-playing.
Fryer, G.E., Kraizer, S.K., Miyoshi, T. (1987). Measuring actual reduction of risk to child abuse: A new approach. Child Abuse & Neglect, 11. 173-179.
Approach: Children in the experimental group participated in the 8-day block of child abuse prevention sessions, while the students in the control group received no instruction. Immediately before the class, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) was given to the children in order to assess their ability to master the concepts presented in the class. The students took two other tests both prior to and after the program. The Harter Perceived Competence Scale for Children was used to measure self-esteem which some believe is related to abuse. The Children Need to Know Knowledge-Attitude Test was administered to measure the children’s cognitive awareness of issues associated with risk and prevention of abuse. In addition to the three tests, each child participated in a simulation the day before and the day after the classroom program where a research assistant posed as a stranger in an isolated part of the school and asked the child to help them do something that would require them to leave the school building together. The student passed the simulation if they did not agree to the stranger’s request and did not pass it if they did agree to the stranger’s request.
Results: During the pretest 47.6 percent of the control group children agreed to go with the stranger compared to 56.5 percent of the experimental group members. During the posttest, there was no change in the control group. However, only 21.7 percent of the experimental group children did not pass the test. Among the experimental group members, those who passed the second simulation scored higher than others in that group on both the composite pre-Harter self-esteem test score and the post-intervention knowledge-attitude test score. Therefore, high self-esteem before the intervention seems to facilitate acquisition of the training.
Fryer, G.E., Kraizer, S.K., Miyoshi, T. (1987). Measuring children’s retention of skills to resist stranger abduction: Use of the simulation technique. Child Abuse & Neglect, 11. 181-185.
Evaluated population: 29 children in grades K-2 of a Denver elementary school.
Approach: Study 2 is a quasi-experimental continuation of study 1 discussed above (Fryer, G.E., Kraizer, S.K., Miyoshi, T. (1987). Measuring actual reduction of risk to child abuse: A new approach. Child Abuse & Neglect, 11. 173-179.). The study had three main goals: 1) to find out if the children in the experimental group who mastered the prevention skills in the first study retained them 6 months later 2) to find out if the children in the experimental group who failed the post-training simulation would pick up the skills if they were taught them a second time, and 3) to find out if the results of the first project could be repeated with the control group children. The program was presented just like it was before to all control group children and to the four children of the experimental group who failed the post-training simulation the year before. The cognitive tests conducted with the prior program were not used this time, but the third simulation was very similar to the two used during the last evaluation.
Results: The results of the second evaluation also demonstrated the effectiveness of the intervention. Only 6.9 percent of the children who participated in the final simulation did not pass. This can be compared to 52.3 percent of the children not passing prior to any intervention. All of the children who passed the simulation immediately after instruction in the previous year passed the final simulation. These results show that six months after program participation, the children did retain the skills. While the skills learned from the intervention do not seem to be short-term, more research is needed in order to determine if the children were able to retain the information for longer than six months. In addition, the two children who failed the third simulation had also failed the two simulations the year before. Therefore, there may be a small number of children who do not benefit from this type of program.
Link to program curriculum: http://www.safechild.org/Order.htm
Fryer, G.E., Kraizer, S.K., Miyoshi, T. (1987). Measuring children’s retention of skills to resist stranger abduction: Use of the simulation technique. Child Abuse & Neglect, 11. 181-185.
Program categorized in this guide according to the following:
Evaluated participant ages: Grades K-2
Program age ranges in the Guide: Early childhood (0-5), Mid. Childhood (6-11)
Program components: school-based
Measured outcomes: cognitive development & education
Program information last updated 3/14/07
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© Child Trends 2004 |