Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Prevention Programming During the Pandemic: How Prevention Educators Navigated COVID-19

Abstract Purpose Domestic violence and sexual assault (DVSA) primary prevention programming is often implemented during the school year, but the delivery of such programming was radically altered during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic when traditional in-person classrooms were often replaced by virtual learning. The immediate issue facing schools was getting academic content to students in this new environment, but there has been little research into what those priorities meant for supplementary programming like DVSA prevention education. How DVSA prevention education was affected by the switch to virtual learning remains largely unknown, but prevention educators’ experiences navigating virtual learning environments can offer insight into the implementation and delivery of virtual programming by community agencies. Method We conducted 20 interviews with DVSA prevention educators across the midwestern region of the United States. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to understand how DVSA prevention programming was impacted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results We identified four themes through our analysis: Disconnection, New Expectations, Reduced Access, and Safety Concerns. Interviews with prevention educators highlighted the many challenges of delivering DVSA prevention programming online, as well as ways that they adapted and even made improvements in this new environment. Conclusion Many students lost access to DVSA prevention education during the COVID-19 pandemic or received a version strongly impacted by social distancing protocols. Findings indicate that students who would have received DVSA prevention programming during the 2020–2021 school year likely did not receive the full dose of intended programming. Curriculum researchers should develop programming suitable for remote delivery for future incidental and fully online learning environments.