Criminology Research Council grant ; (36/92-3)
Child abuse is recognised as a major social problem in our community and a variety of initiatives aim to alleviate the problem. One approach has been to develop school based primary prevention programs directed at improving the abilities of children to avoid or resist abuse. The Protective Behaviours program is such a program. In South Australia, large numbers of teachers and child care workers have been trained to teach Protective Behaviours to children.
The Review was planned in two linked stages. Stage 1, which was undertaken during 1993, focussed on teachers' use of the Protective Behaviours program. Stage 2, which was undertaken during 1994, focussed on student outcomes.
A survey approach was selected to generate information about teachers' use of the Protective Behaviours program. A questionnaire was developed, trialled, and administered to a stratified random sample of over 1400 teachers who had been trained in Protective Behaviours.
From this analysis several ways of promoting the wider teaching of personal safety programs like Protective Behaviours were suggested.
The results of this study reveal complex and, at times, perplexing insights into the thinking of children about personal safety issues. They serve to remind proponents of personal safety education that none of the concepts and strategies used in programs can be assumed to be learnt by all children. Children's responses to physical and emotional maltreatment, for example, were shown to be very different from their responses to sexual maltreatment. The findings do, however, give qualified support to the efficacy of the Protective Behaviours program and provide some evidence to support its essential rationale.