Why promote healthy behaviours

Activities should promote healthy behaviours to give participants a frame of reference for how they should behave, not just how they shouldn't.

How to promote healthy behaviours

Activities should:

• balance discussions of the pleasurable aspects of sex with a recognition of the unintended consequences of sex (including high rates of pressured and unwanted sex)
• promote positive masculinity over toxic masculinity
• empower participants to make informed decisions about risk and healthy relationships
• encourage participants to define and develop healthy relationships on social media
• encourage participants to think about personal ethics and positive expressions of gender identity
• teach positive interpersonal relationship skills
• encourage role models who promote healthy relationships and healthy sexuality
• teach participants how to identify and respond to potential abuse situations
• promote victim empathy over victim blaming
• encourage active bystander skills.

Evidence for promoting healthy behaviours

• Lightning Does Strike Twice: preventing sexual revictimisation — Ministry of Women's Affairs (2012)     
• Review of bystander approaches in support of preventing violence against women — VicHealth (2011)
• Promoting healthy behaviours including positive masculinity and gender equality — multiple reports cited in Russell (2008)
• Sexual violence and social media — Fairbairn, et al. (2013) (PDF 1.8MB)
• Putting ethical sex into practice: sexual negotiation, gender and citizenship in the lives of young women and men — Carmody &, Ovenden (2013)

Why reduce risk factors and challenge cultural norms

Cultural and social norms exist that normalise sexual violence, eg victim blaming and negative expressions of masculinity. Successful activities can change individual and community attitudes and behaviours, the way prevention campaigns targeting smoking and drink-driving have done.

More about risk factors

How to reduce risk factors and challenge cultural norms

Activities should target risk factors at all levels of the ecological model by challenging:

• social norms around "acceptable sexual behaviour" which normalise sexual violence, eg victim blaming, rape myths, and negative expressions of masculinity
• rigid gender roles or gender stereotypes
• power differences between different groups, especially when they give some groups greater social status than others
• community norms which promote the protection of "privacy", regardless of the harm that's perpetuated
• lack of empathy for sexual partners.

Evidence for reducing risk factors and challenging cultural norms

• Preventing Sexual Aggression Among College Men: An Evaluation of a Social Norms and Bystander Intervention Program — Gidycz, Orchowski & Berkowitz (2011) (PDF 442KB)
• Recognising the implications of rape myth acceptance as a social norm — Bohner et al. (2009)
• Rape Prevention Through Bystander Education: Bringing a Broader Community Perspective to Sexual Violence Prevention — Banyard, V.L., Plante, E.G.& Moynihan, M. (2005) (PDF 2MB)
• Need to understand and challenge the cultural norms that normalise sexual violence — Carmody and Carrington 2002; Foshee et al., 2005 cited in Russell, 2008
  Prevention work must challenge rape myths and the social and political context in which political violence occurs — Mulroney 2003; Adair 2006 cited in Russell, 2008
  Programmes aim to change aspects of society that support violence and target attitudes and beliefs about aggression and violence — Wolfe et al., 2006 cited in Russell, 2008
  Programmes must include a focus on personal values and ethics, the construction of gender, and male identity — Urbis Key Young 2004 cited in Russell, 2008

Why tailor an activity to its audience

Activities need to be flexible and include local experiences and cultural beliefs to engage different audiences.

How to tailor an activity to its audience

What works for children and young people
What works for Māori audiences
What works for Pasifika audiences
What works for migrants and people with a refugee background
What works for the rainbow community
What works for people with disabilities

Evidence for tailoring an activity to its audience

• Programmes must be tailored to the audiences — Schwere 2002, in Keel, 2005; Webster-Stratton & Taylor, 2001; MacIntyre & Carr 1999; Adair 2006: Lee et al., 2007; Briggs & Hawkins, 1997, all cited in Russell, 2008
• Programmes need to be flexible and culturally competent to engage different audiences — Webster -Stratton & Taylor, 2001; Mulroney, 2003, both cited in Russell, 2008
• Toward a multi-level, ecological approach to the primary prevention of sexual assault: prevention in peer and community contexts — Casey & Lindhorst (2009)