Expect Respect engages youth, parents, schools and community organizations in promoting healthy teen relationships and preventing dating abuse.

Serving Austin schools since 1988, Expect Respect is built on an ecological, trauma-informed model and offers a comprehensive prevention program for youth in middle and high schools. Expect Respect has 3 primary program components that 1) support boys and girls who have been exposed to violence, 2) mobilize youth as leaders and 3) engage schools, parents and community organizations in creating safe and healthy environments.

Expect Respect Support Groups are tailored to the needs of teens who have experienced violence or abuse in their homes, peer or dating relationships. Boys and girls are referred by school counselors, teachers, or themselves and meet with a trained facilitator in gender-separate support groups for 24 curriculum-based sessions throughout the school year. The format of groups is designed to provide a safe and supportive environment where teens can heal from past trauma and develop skills and expectations for healthy relationships. The curriculum focuses on developing communication skills, choosing equality and respect, recognizing abuse, learning relationship skills and becoming active proponents for safe and healthy relationships.

The Expect Respect Youth Leadership programs educate and empower youth to have healthy relationships and to become role models, allies and peer educators. Youth leaders speak out about bullying, harassment and dating abuse through
youth-generated projects, campaigns, theatre, art, music and poetry. Youth Leadership Training is provided in classrooms, clubs, or other youth settings and consists of up to 8 curriculum-based sessions on preventing bullying, cyber-bullying, sexual harassment, dating abuse, and promoting healthy relationships. Other youth leadership programs include a collaboration with the City of Austin’s Summer Youth Employment Program and the Changing Lives Youth Theatre Ensemble.

Lastly, the Expect Respect Program engages school personnel, parents and community organizations in promoting healthy relationships, creating safe school and afterschool environments and responding effectively to incidents of violence and abuse. Expect Respect works with schools on the development of policy, curricula, and training for administrators, counselors, faculty, nurses, coaches, law enforcement and Parent Support Specialists. The Parent and Youth Transition Initiative increases communication and school connectedness for families transitioning to middle school.

Expect Respect was the Lead for Start Strong Austin, 2008-2012, a community collaboration to prevent dating abuse before it starts. Austin was one of 11 sites that participated in the National Start Strong Initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Expect Respect is a program designed to promote healthy teen relationships and prevent dating abuse.

From 1997 – 2000, SafePlace received funding and technical assistance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for preventing dating violence by addressing bullying and sexual harassment in elementary schools (Rosenbluth, Whitaker, Valle, & Ball, 2010).

In 2003, the Expect Respect Program was one of four programs selected by the CDC to participate in an empowerment evaluation that aimed to build capacity for program improvement, manual development and evaluation and develop a knowledge base of evidence-based prevention efforts (Noonan & Gibbs, 2009).

The initial, qualitative evaluation focused on Expect Respect support groups for at-risk youth. 288 students in middle and high school participated in 28 Expect Respect support groups, of which 10 were chosen for group interviews post-exposure. The questions asked during these interviews focused on the experiences in Expect Respect support groups and changes in personal relationships. The responses were tape recorded, transcribed, and coded to determine how often a topic was mentioned, to discover overarching patterns and themes, and to characterize and distinguish the individual groups. The interviews (Ball, Kerig, & Rosenbluth, 2007) indicated that groups were effective in increasing knowledge about warning signs of abuse and skills for healthy relationships. The students saw the support groups as a safe place to share their experiences and opinions, consider new perspectives, and learn new skills. The teens, especially the boys involved with the juvenile justice system, changed their attitudes about abuse towards girls. Participants described the importance of strong and authentic relationships among group members and with the group facilitators and a sense of belonging.

A preliminary, uncontrolled evaluation (Ball, Tharp, Noonan, Valle, Hamburger & Rosenbluth (2012) examined changes in healthy relationship skills and emotionally and physically abusive behaviors in participants’ peer and dating relationships. Self-reports (N = 144) showed significant increases in healthy relationship skills from baseline to program completion, whereas levels of victimization and perpetration for the whole sample remained unchanged. However a subgroup of students who reported baseline levels of victimization and perpetration with means at least one standard deviation above the group mean reported significantly less victimization and perpetration at program completion. Overall findings indicated that Expect Respect support groups were useful in increasing participants’ healthy conflict resolution skills, and that the program appeared to be most successful for the youth who were at the highest risk for future perpetration and victimization.