Partner Abuse Prevention Education: An Integrative Approach to Program Development and Evaluation

Evidence linking emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral factors to partner abuse suggests that relationship education programs targeting these risk factors in youth might minimize harmful outcomes. In this article, it is argued that such programs are important but need to be evaluated for their effect on both the hypothesized risk factors and the critical interactional tendencies of individuals that can feed high-risk relationship dynamics. The dyadic slippery-slope model is proposed as a theoretical framework to guide educators and researchers in developing and evaluating partner abuse prevention education (PAPE) programs for specific groups of young people. The approach described takes a broader view of the aims of PAPE than approaches aimed at reducing particular physical acts. This approach, if adopted, has the potential to produce more constructive findings for advancing PAPE than traditional risk factor and evaluation research is capable of.