South Kingstown, RI – November 13, 2012. This month Pro-Change will start to pilot test a three-session computer-tailored intervention called Stand Up:
A Program to Prevent Bullying. Pilot participants will include a national sample of teens with epilepsy and high school students in the Cleveland, Ohio area.
The Stand Up program delivers questions, stage-matched feedback, videos, and personal stories designed to educate, motivate, and inspire students to use six skills for relating to others in healthy ways:
- Trying to understand and respect the other person’s feelings and needs
- Using calm, nonviolent ways to deal with disagreements
- Respecting the other person’s boundaries
- Communicating your own feelings and needs clearly and respectfully
- Making decisions that you know are right for you in social situations
- Taking a stand to stop bullying when you see it
Each session ends with a Let’s Talk About It web page, which lists school, community, and national help sources.
Dr. Tatiana Falcone, the program director for Project COPE (Collaboration for Outreach and Prevention Education) at Cleveland Clinic states, “Given the painful consequences of bullying for adolescent patients with epilepsy and for other students, this is an important issue that needs to be addressed through programs such as Stand Up. It is imperative to engage students in the learning environment, to educate and inspire their daily actions.”
The Stand Up program is an adaption of Teen Choices: A program for Healthy, Nonviolent Relationships, a computer-tailored intervention for dating violence prevention developed by Pro-Change. With funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Grant #R43CE000499) and the National Institutes of Mental Health (Grant #R44MH86129), Teen Choices was tested and found effective in a randomized trial involving 3900 high school students from 20 Rhode Island high schools. The Cleveland Clinic is able to provide the Stand Up program through a grant provided by Health Resources and Services Administration’s Maternal and Child Health Bureau (Grant #H98MC20269).
For further information, please contact Deborah Levesque, PhD., at dlevesque@prochange.com.