Cultivating Partnerships: A Case Study for Moving Beyond Campus-Centric Approaches to Sexual Violence Prevention

The prevalence of sexual violence on college campuses and in secondary schools requires institutional action. Yet the responsibility for preventing sexual violence does not rest on college campus communities or secondary schools alone.  This study reports on one midwestern university’s efforts to develop partnerships for building institutional capacity to prevent sexual violence within colleges and universities, as well as secondary schools, in collaboration with community sexual violence prevention specialists utilizing the Mentors in Violence Prevention model. Findings from this study offer preliminary evidence that these partnerships are facilitating attitudinal change and increasing perceptions of efficacy in bystander behavior and programming potential. The findings also reveal significant differences between secondary school personnel and university personnel and community stakeholders regarding the attitudinal and self-efficacy dimensions. Such differences support the need for university-secondary school collaborative work and partnerships to increase respective institutional capacities for sexual violence education and prevention.