# Evaluation of the Youth-centered Environmental Shift (YES!) Program to reduce sexual violence in middle schools

> **NIH ALLCDC U01** · UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON · 2020 · $374,999

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Sexual violence has overwhelming costs and consequences that necessitate primary prevention solutions. More
than 52 million women (43.6%) and 27 million men (24.8%) in the U.S. experience some form of sexual violence
in their lifetime including rape, sexual coercion, and/or unwanted sexual contact. Adolescence is a critical time
for first experiencing sexual violence, as 40% of women with a history of rape first experienced it before age 18.
These experiences have lifelong negative health consequences. Most sexual violence prevention programs have
been developed for mid- to late-adolescence or for college students, when sexual violence is most prevalent.
Yet, effective interventions to prevent sexual violence among adolescents and before it occurs are rare, lack
adequate evidence, are individual-focused, and are resource intensive. Washington State's new Youth-centered
Environmental Shift (YES!) program, developed by the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction
is based on the best available evidence for preventing sexual violence at the level of a whole school community.
The overall goal of YES! is to create a culture within middle schools where students are emotionally and
physically safe, supported, and free of abuse, specifically sexual violence. The program is focused on preventing
sexual violence before it begins and providing a school-wide program that is effective and scalable to other
schools. YES! will be piloted in Washington middle schools in 2020 through collaboration with one Educational
Service District in Washington, serving 44 school districts. Through strong partnerships with state agencies and
schools, the study we propose will have two main components. First (Component A), we will build system-level
capacity to effectively examine the impact of YES! in the three pilot middle schools, establish collaborative
systems for collecting sensitive data from students and staff, and assess the feasibility and acceptability of the
YES! pilot. Second (Component B), we will expand our evaluation process to more schools to rigorously evaluate
whether YES! reduces violence victimization and perpetration, has an impact on the risk and protective factors
associated with sexual violence, and if it is feasible for YES! to be sustained and further scaled-up. We will use
a practice-based approach that engages education partners and school personnel throughout our study, to
improve the success of our approaches, interpretations, study applications, and translation to practice. In this
second component we will use a group randomized design, randomly assigning middle schools to initiate the
YES! program or proceed with their `usual practice' around sexual violence prevention. This design will be used
to rigorously evaluate the impact of YES! on sexual violence outcomes. Data collected through surveys and
focus groups of middle school students and staff at multiple points in times over the full five years of t...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10113155
- **Project number:** 1U01CE003210-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
- **Principal Investigator:** Betty Bekemeier
- **Activity code:** U01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** ALLCDC
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $374,999
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-09-30 → 2025-09-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10113155

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10113155, Evaluation of the Youth-centered Environmental Shift (YES!) Program to reduce sexual violence in middle schools (1U01CE003210-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10113155. Licensed CC0.

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