The Guidelines

Saturated Across the Lifespan

Ideally, strategies to prevent SV/DV begin before birth and continue throughout one’s lifetime. 
Research has shown that one-time sessions rarely, if ever, produce lasting behavioral changes that will prevent violence. 
Primary prevention aims to shift behaviors and norms. This requires intensive time, sustained support, and focused attention. This cannot be accomplished in one session or by simply operating on one level of the SEM.

Effective primary prevention strategies focus on data-driven key messages and build skills for individuals and communities through intentional, connected, and continuous programming starting very early in life, or even before birth (e.g., targeting expecting parents), and well through adulthood.

This handout about the social-ecological model from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention helps to illustrate the depth and breadth needed to impact change in communities.
Preventing Intimate Partner Violence Across the Lifespan: A Technical Package of Programs, Policies, and Practices was developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to offer a group of prevention strategies across the lifespan based on the best available evidence.
This tool from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center provides an overview of healthy childhood sexual development by exploring age-appropriate behaviors and skills and information on supporting healthy development.
The Midwestern Prevention Project, also known as Project STAR, is a comprehensive, school-centered, and community-based program for sixth- to eighth-grade students that includes a classroom curriculum, parent education, community organizing, policy development, and media advocacy. Components are introduced sequentially over the span of five years. This program is a valuable example of a prevention program that goes beyond simple knowledge dissemination across a portion of the lifespan. While education programs are helpful in influencing knowledge about an issue, education alone is not enough to sustain an impact on behavior.