Project Description:
People with disabilities are at an increased risk of violence when compared with peers in the general population. Further, having an intellectual or developmental disability (I/DD) puts a person at an even greater risk. The purpose of this proposal is to pilot test and validate an educational intervention for people with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities (I/DD) about abuse prevention called Leadership Empowerment and Abuse Prevention (LEAP). This project will contribute to the field of abuse prevention by establishing an evidence-based program and fidelity and outcome measures that are accessible to persons with mild, moderate, and severe disabilities.
Adult males and females (18 and over) with I/DD from a range of racial and ethnic backgrounds will participate in the research. We will partner with I/DD provider agencies to recruit participants and host training intervention sessions. Additionally, we will continue to collaborate with the Virginia Anti-Violence Project to prepare trainers on how to support victims if they disclose.
The proposed study has a mixed methods design using survey research and qualitative inquiry methodologies to determine the effectiveness of the LEAP training intervention. During the first 6 months of the project, final pilot testing will be completed with 50 people on project instrumentation including trainer fidelity tools, video-vignette pre- and post-tests, and a video vignette 3-month follow-up evaluation. The intervention will be tested with an additional 100 people for the remaining project period. The main hypotheses for the project are that that program participants will increase their knowledge about distinguishing between healthy and unhealthy relationships, and will know what to do when confronted with an unhealthy situation, after participating in the intervention. Univariate, bivariate, and inferential procedures will be used to analyze data. The specific aims of the project are to 1) finalize evaluation protocols and tools for LEAP to assess fidelity of implementation and measurement of change in participant outcomes and 2) gather data to establish the LEAP as an evidence-based primary or universal prevention program for abuse and neglect of people with I/DD disabilities.
Outcomes of the project will be evidence-based tools and an intervention that teaches people about healthy and unhealthy relationships and what to do if they are in an unhealthy situation. Result from the project will be disseminated in multiple formats including reports and scholarly publications. All project data will be made available for archiving and further analyses.
