Measuring children's retention of skills to resist stranger abduction: use of the simulation technique.
This paper describes an evaluation which builds upon an earlier project to measure actual behavioral change in the form of reduction of vulnerability to abduction and abuse by strangers; change attributable to participation in a primary prevention program. Simulations, life-like scenarios previously described, were used to address three key questions: Did children who had demonstrated mastery of prevention skills acquired six months earlier retain those skills? Would reteaching the prevention program result in mastery for those children who failed to demonstrate required skills after the first presentation of the prevention program? Could the experimental group results of the first project be repeated with the previous control group? Several findings validated the earlier work and enhanced the understanding of what can be accomplished through prevention programing. Thirty of the original 44 children who participated six months earlier were again available to take part in the final simulation. Of those, all of the previous experimental group children who had performed successfully when participating in the simulation upon completion of the first project were again successful six months later in resisting the invitation of a stranger to leave their school. Each of the previous control group children were successful in the final simulation after participation in the program. But reteaching of the prevention program was successful for just two of the four children who had earlier failed following participation in the program. These findings document the immediate and continued benefits which may accrue from experientially based prevention programing and suggest an important research agenda to facilitate the further evolution of prevention programing and evaluation.
D002648:Child; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000523:psychology; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D011577:Psychodrama; D012306:Risk; D012381:Role Playing