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WISE Words Blog

Teaching Primary Prevention

23-Nov-09 10:52 | anonymous
Primary prevention comes from a public health model of preventing disease, and has more recently become a catch phrase in the anti- domestic and sexual violence movement.  (For more information on what primary prevention means check out this memo by WISE fellow Amanda George!)

The shift for many crisis centered organizations has really caused us to think about our mission and purpose, however many (including myself) have come to the theory that prevention is crucial to ENDING gender-based violence.

So when we decide to embrace prevention education, what does this mean and how can we best teach it? There are many theories, postulations, and little research. And this spans across all manner of learning, violence, and prevention topics.

One little minute detail - the teaching of Myth v. Fact - has been one that's caught my attention and the divide is great. Is it a useful tool to show common myths in order to dispel them, or are we doing more harm than good by giving the myth air time in lessons? While I have firm personal beliefs, others have as well which are directly opposite, and the research we each can turn to is loose and not violence-based.

The CALCASA (the parent organization of PreventConnect) blog looks at the examples of other social messaging campaigns and asks how we can connect these lessons to our work in anti-violence. 

What do you think? Is prevention the next step for our movement? Can we use other social messaging to inform our methods? Are myths useful or hurtful?
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