Prevention and Intervention

ICADV’s work is all along the prevention continuum. Up until this point we have done little to no work in the area of primary prevention. The bulk of the work done by ICADV and our member programs has been response driven.  Our advocates work with women who have already experienced abuse. Intervention services and legal action are both incredibly important. Iowans need to be safe and to be able to find help when they need it most. Iowans also need to have systems in place that recognize and respond to deviant behavior.

DELTA is giving us the opportunity to rethink how we perceive domestic violence issues through a public health lens. Primary prevention is meant to compliment the work currently being done.

 

 What is Primary Prevention?

Primary Prevention refers to efforts that happen before abuse occurs.

An analogy: Primary prevention is similar to closing the window and turning on the heater when you hear the forecast for cold weather tonight. It is not adding another blanket when you wake up cold. Similarly, domestic violence work is not simply adding stronger laws and more services. While this may be very beneficial and impact future abuse rates, we must keep in mind that our goal is to not get chilled at all. There are limitations to this analogy. Prevention should not be confused with safety planning. Also while we cannot change the climatic conditions, a community can slowly change its social conditions that support violence. Wouldn’t it be great if all Iowans had the skills, resources and knowledge needed to have happy, healthy relationships?

So what do prevention activities look like? This is something our organization is still working to define and incorporate. Some examples include but are not limited to: Healthy relationship classes with teens, media campaigns, and –

Some exciting examples of national prevention campaigns include:

Men Can Stop Rape

Love Is Not Abuse