Jennifer Keller
Empowerment of Women and Girls though Life Skills and Self-defense Training
Interpersonal violence has a significant physical and emotional toll on ones well-being. Based on current research and clinical experience, we have developed two empowerment programs to address such violence. Each project has three components: 1) psychoeducation, 2) psychological skill development, and 3) physical self-defense training.
The first pilot project was designed for adult women who are survivors of interpersonal violence. The curriculum addresses the frequent psychological and emotional sequelae of that violence. This class is designed to help women understand the link between the trauma and these psychological effects, as well as to develop effective life skills, which can be protective against future violence. The third component is physical self-defense training. A small literature suggests that women who take self-defense classes have increases in general self-efficacy. This addresses the beliefs that one could successfully fight off an attacker and whether one has the right to protect ones self. We also develop physical skills, such as punching, kicking, and evasion techniques.
The second pilot project was designed for adolescent girls since young women ages 16-24 experience the highest rates of relationship violence. Moreover, once a girl has experienced such violence, she is at even greater risk of re-victimization. Thus, if we can prevent these experiences during the greatest risk period, then we can hopefully prevent a cascade of life-long psychological and interpersonal problems. This curriculum is an age-appropriate, adapted version of the adult curriculum.
The symposium will be broken down into 4 specific talks. First, the empirical support for our program development will be discussed. Second, we will discuss the baseline data for the adult women who participated in our therapeutic group, including examining the relationship between type and extent of abuse and measures of shame, guilt, risk perception, and psychological symptoms. The third talk will discuss the challenges and practical aspects of implementing the adult womens program. Qualitative and quantitative data related to class-related changes will be discussed. Finally, we will discuss implementation of and outcome data from the program conducted at a local high school. Overall our results show significant increases in self-defense self-efficacy, general self-efficacy, and coping self-efficacy and in assertiveness and self-esteem across two very different samples.
- Started on: 4/29/2012
- Presented to:Western Psychological Association
- Location:Burlingame, CA
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