Transforming Communities

Prevention and Outreach

Project R.E.S.T. staff are trained experts in providing education, training, and prevention programs to youth and adults. We believe in starting early with youth by implementing multi-session prevention programs that promote healthy relationships and bystander intervention. Our goal is to eliminate the root causes of domestic and sexual violence by stopping it before it occurs. By engaging youth in prevention efforts, we believe it will help to change social norms and attitudes that tolerate and condone violence.

How Do We Prevent?

Primary prevention of intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual assault is a systematic process promoting healthy environments and behaviors, resulting in the reduction of the likelihood and the frequency of intimate partner violence and sexual assault.

Primary prevention IS NOT:

  • A one-time program or event
  • One skill-building session
  • One protocol

Primary prevention IS:

  • Development of social norms and social environments that create, support, and sustain positive behaviors and healthy relationships
  • Promotion of comprehensive and multidisciplinary approaches to preventing violence against women and girls before it occurs by impeding the development of perpetrators

Primary prevention will require true social change. Primary prevention requires on-going conversation, examples of what healthy relationships and interaction are, among other things, to make structural and social change a reality. This change will include a process of changing the attitudes and beliefs that lead to specific behaviors. It also means the acknowledgement that we cannot just accept the world the way it is and expect that the problems will go away.The following are principles for effective prevention of intimate partner violence and sexual assault:

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  • Individual-level influences: personal factors that increases likelihood of an individual becoming a victim or perpetrator of violence.
    • Interventions: target social/cognitive skills – counseling, therapy, and educational sessions;
  • Interpersonal relationship-level influences: factors emerging from relationships with peers, intimate partners, and family members.
    • Interventions: family therapy, bystander intervention, parent training;
  • Community-level influences: factors from community and social environments. (schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods).
    • Interventions: impact climate, systems and policies in a given setting and;
  • Societal-level influences: larger macro-level factors that influence sexual violence. (gender inequality, cultural or religious beliefs, societal norms, and policies that contribute tensions between groups of people.
    • Interventions: collaborations by multiple partners to change laws and policies related to sexual violence and gender inequality.

Youth Prevention Programs:

Did you know that Nearly 70% of all reported sexual assaults occur to children ages 17 and under. 1 in 5 tweens knows a victim of dating violence. 1 in 10 teens (11-18 years old) said a romantic partner had prevented them from using a cell phone. One in four girls and one in six boys is sexually abused before the age of 18?

To prevent further occurrence of dating & sexual violence in our community we must reach out to those who are most at risk — our youth. Every person can work to prevent sexual and dating violence by promoting healthy and positive relationships that are based on respect, safety, and equality. Project R.E.S.T. offers a variety of workshops and programs for children and teens to prevent dating violence and sexual abuse and assault.

The best way to protect young people from sexual violence is to offer primary violence prevention education. Primary prevention means that instead of focusing on risk reduction or getting help after an assault occurs, these programs identify factors and behaviors that can lead to violence and work to modify them before violence occurs.

Project R.E.S.T. programs comply with the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control, SC Department of Health and Environmental Control, the SC Comprehensive Health Education Act, and Erin’s Law. We offer a variety of programs and utilize several different curriculum’s that are appropriate for different age groups:

Here are some of the programs/curriculum’s we offer our youth:

Elementary School:

Building Healthy Relationships

Middle School:

    • Evidence Based Curriculum:
      • Expect Respect
      • Girls Circle

High School:

    • Evidence Based Curriculum:
      • Expect Respect
      • Girls Circle

College Prevention Programs

  • Evidence Based Curriculum:
    • Bringing in the Bystander

Prevention Strategies include:

  • Focus on changing norms to change behavior
  • foster comprehensive and integrated systems for prevention
  • Engage community leadership / be responsive to community needs and strengths
  • Promote and model positive behaviors
  • Invites men as stakeholders
  • Emphasize role of bystander intervention
  • Focus on risk factors and assets
  • Build on existing assets and efforts

Prevention Programs Available in Spartanburg, Cherokee and Union County:

  • Primary Prevention for K-5, Middle, and High School
  • Bystander Intervention on Campus or Community
  • Campus Sexual Assault Prevention
  • Community Health Fairs
  • School Health Fairs
  • Community, Civic and Religious Groups
  • Professional Training 

Primary Prevention Matters

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