Sexual Harassment and Violence Are Pervasive in K-12 Schools

Sexual harassment (SH) and sexual violence (SV) in schools are forms of sex discrimination and are prohibited under Federal Law Title IX. As SH/SV on college campuses consume a lot of attention and resources, so must such investments be directed toward prevention efforts in K-12 schools, where SH/SV are rampant and pervasive.

Victims of Domestic Violence Often Face Housing Problems

The physical, psychological, and economic consequences for victims of domestic violence (DV) and their families have been well documented, and although recent federal legislation provides certain housing protections for some DV victims, many women and their families remain at great risk for homelessness and ongoing violence.

Project Director: Linda M. Williams, Ph.D. Co-Investigators: April Pattavina, Ph.D., Alison Cares, Ph.D., and Nan Stein, Ed.D. Funded by: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice

Research Scientist Erin Johnson is a microeconomist who studies questions in health care such as how physicians respond to financial incentives when making treatment decisions. In addition to measuring impacts of various factors on treatment, her work is interested in the resultant impacts on patient health, which she measures using patient diagnoses and other health indicators. Some of her current work examines how the physician-patient relationship affects treatment.

The work of Research Scientist LaShawnda Lindsay focuses on factors influencing the academic experiences of African American girls and young women鈥攊ncluding the teaching and the curricula presented to them and the culture, aspirations, and expectations they bring to their classrooms.

Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., Allison Tracy, Ph.D., Ineke Ceder, and Amanda Richer authored 鈥淢easuring Program Quality: Evidence of the scientific validity of the Assessment of Program Practices Tool (APT),鈥� which will be published in an upcoming issue of Afterschool Matters. Funded by the William T. Grant Foundation and Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation in two phases, they describe APT鈥檚 strengths as an evaluation and program quality measure for out-of-school (OST) programs, a tool that is critical for program directors and policymakers who need to identify where to improve and how to support those improvements within OST programs. In addition, the online, video-based training developed in the second phase to increase reliability of APT raters showed promise, such that the most high priority APT quality areas were found to be the most improved (i.e., most accurate) scores post training.

Tracy Gladstone, Ph.D. will present 鈥淧reventing Depression in Women Recovering from Fistula Repair Surgery in Ethiopia鈥� during the fifth annual meeting of the Global Consortium for Depression Prevention which will be held at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA in December. Obstetric fistula is a serious complication that affects 50,000-100,000 women annually, primarily in low-resourced countries. Although depression is a particular problem among women with fistulae, to date few efforts have addressed risk for depression in this population. Gladstone and her team have developed the COFFEE intervention (CBT with Obstetric Fistula for Education and Empowerment) for women recovering from fistula repair surgery. COFFEE is a modular, group intervention, delivered by nurses, that teaches psychoeducation, behavioral activation, relaxation, problem-solving, cognitive restructuring, and a trauma narrative, as needed. In an open trial of this intervention in Gondar, Ethiopia, five separate COFFEE groups were conducted with 26 women who were enrolled within a week of fistula repair surgery. All women completed baseline self-report questionnaires of depressive symptoms and trauma, participated in group sessions (nurse leaders were supervised via Skype), and were assessed immediately following group participation, and then a three-month follow-up (88.5% retention). Results indicate that depressive symptom scores dropped significantly from baseline (M=12.42) to post-group (M=3.5) and to three-month follow-up (M=1.26, all p鈥檚 < .01); likewise, there was a significant drop in trauma scores from baseline (M=2.1) to post-group (M=1.13, p<.01), which was sustained at three-month followup (M=1.12). Next steps include conducting a randomized trial of the COFFEE intervention to determine whether or not it prevents depressive symptoms in women with fistulae, relative to a no-intervention control.