STOP SV: A Technical Package to Prevent Sexual Violence

Course overview

This course is based upon material published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is available as an open access article. This technical course represents a select group of strategies based on the best available evidence to help communities and states sharpen their focus on prevention activities with the greatest potential to reduce sexual violence (SV) and its consequences. These strategies focus on promoting social norms that protect against violence; teaching skills to prevent SV; providing opportunities, both economic and social, to empower and support girls and women; creating protective environments; and supporting victims/survivors to lessen harms. The strategies represented in this course include those with a focus on preventing SV from happening in the first place as well as approaches to lessen the immediate and long-term harms of SV. Though the evidence for SV is still developing and more research is needed, the problem of SV is too large and costly and has too many urgent consequences to wait for perfect answers. There is a compelling need for prevention now and to learn from the efforts that are undertaken. Commitment, cooperation, and leadership from numerous sectors, including public health, education, justice, health care, social services, business-labor, and government can bring about the successful implementation of this package. This course on sexual violence prevention is designed for social workers, professional counselors, psychologists, nurses, and substance abuse counselors, who do clinical work. This course is appropriate for beginning, intermediate and advanced level practitioners who wish to develop or increase their knowledge of strategies for the prevention of sexual violence. The course material includes a review of interventions. It may also be useful for licensed clinicians who require clinical continuing education courses for license renewal. Authors: Basile, DeGue, Jones, Freire, Dills, Smith, and Raiford Learning Objectives: This course will provide the practitioner with detailed information regarding sexual violence and its prevention. Specifically, a professional will: Describe approaches meant to promote social norms that protect against violence Recognize opportunities to empower and support girls and women Summarize how to create protective environments Citation: Basile, K.C., DeGue, S., Jones, K., Freire, K., Dills, J., Smith, S.G., Raiford, J.L. (2016). STOP SV: A Technical Package to Prevent Sexual Violence. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.