Responding In Peaceful and Positive Ways (OJJDP Model Program Guide)

Office of Justice Programs, Innovation - Partnerships – Safer Neighborhoods

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Serving Children, Families and Communities

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Responding In Peaceful and Positive Ways

Intervention:

Responding in Peaceful and Positive Ways (RIPP) is designed to provide conflict-resolution strategies and skills to sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade students in middle and junior high schools. The goals of RIPP are to reduce aggressive behavior and violence in school-aged youth, and to intervene with young children to help them avoid potential violence in adolescence. The program is suitable for children from all socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, and cultural backgrounds.

RIPP draws from theories of social cognition, problem-solving, and emotional processes that are essential in controlling aggressive behavior and in increasing social competence. RIPP targets a developmental phase in the child’s life, the transition from elementary to middle school, as an opportunity to intervene to prevent violence.

RIPP is a school-based violence-prevention program. The program combines a classroom curriculum of social/cognitive problem-solving with real-life, skill-building opportunities, such as peer mediation. Students learn to apply critical thinking skills and personal management strategies to personal health and well-being issues. RIPP teaches key concepts, such as:

The importance of significant friends or adult mentors
The relationship between self-image and gang-related behaviors
The effects of environmental influences on personal health

Using a variety of lessons and activities, students learn about the physical and mental development that occurs during adolescence, analyze the consequences of personal choices on health and well-being, learn that they have nonviolent options when conflicts arise, and evaluate the benefits of being a positive family and community role model.

Evaluation Methodology:

Study 1
The Farrell et al. (2003a) study assessed violent-behavior outcomes among seventh graders in two urban middle schools in Richmond, Va. Each school had administered RIPP to sixth graders the previous year. Classes of seventh graders were randomized to a no-intervention control condition or to the RIPP for seventh grade intervention. Eleven classrooms were assigned to the control group (n= 237), and 10 classrooms made up the intervention group (n= 239). The sample was 47 percent male, with an average age of 12.8 years. Nearly all children (97 percent) were African American. Forty-six percent reported living with single mothers, 20 percent lived with both parents, and another 16 percent lived in stepfamilies. There were no significant differences between groups in gender, race, age, or family structure.

Participants completed a pretest at the beginning of seventh grade and a posttest at the end of the year. Two follow-ups were obtained at 6 and 12 months posttest during the eighth grade. The primary outcomes were measured by the disciplinary code violations of the school (violence, fighting, assault, possession of a weapon, and suspensions). Measurements of violence also included the Problem Behavior Frequency Scales in which students self-report the frequency of violent behavior, nonphysical aggression, drug use, and delinquent behavior in the past month. Other measures used were the Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale and the RIPP Knowledge Test (which assesses attitudes toward violence).

The data was analyzed using an intent-to-treat approach with generalized linear models and generalized estimating equations. These methods are specifically used to address the nested design of data in which clusters (classrooms) of participating schoolchildren were assigned to the intervention.

Study 2
Farrell and colleagues (2003b) examined the impact of RIPP for sixth and seventh grade on violent behavior outcomes. Participants in the study were students at four intervention schools (n= 752) and four control schools (n= 735) in rural Florida. The sample was equally divided between boys and girls, with 29 percent being children of migrant workers and 32 percent living in homes where English was not the first language. The average age at the start of sixth grade was 11.4 years, with 65 percent identifying themselves as white, 22 percent as Hispanic, and 11 percent as African American.

In 1998–99, the intervention group received RIPP for sixth grade and RIPP for seventh grade the following year. Measurements were taken at pretest (beginning of sixth grade), at two midpoint assessments (mid-sixth and beginning of seventh grade), at a 4-month follow-up (end of seventh grade), and at 9 months posttest. The measure used to assess behavior included disciplinary records (for only a subsample of six schools, of which three were control and three were intervention schools); the Problem Behavior Frequency Scales; the Children’s Report of Exposure to Violence; Peer Provocation Scale; Life Satisfaction Scale; the RIPP Knowledge Test; the Problem Situation Inventory; the Beliefs Supporting Aggression Scale; the Attitude Toward Conflict Scale; and the Peer Support for Nonviolence Scale.

The data was analyzed using generalized linear models and generalized estimating equations, which are specifically used to address the multilevel design of data in which schools with participating schoolchildren were randomized (rather than individual participants).

Evaluation Outcome:

Caution should be taken in applying this program to a rural setting. The evidence base suggests that while RIPP showed promising results with urban African American school children (see Study 1), the program showed inconsistent results with small effect sizes when administered to schools in a rural setting with majority white schoolchildren (see Study 2).

Study 1
Violent Behavior
Farrell and colleagues (2003a) found significant differences in the number of violent disciplinary code violations in the eighth grade. The control group had more than twice the rate of disciplinary code violations related to violence than the RIPP treatment group. There were no other significant disciplinary code differences in the eighth grade and none during the seventh grade.

Results from self-reports showed that boys who participated in the intervention reported significantly more favorable attitudes toward nonviolence at the 6-month follow-up and significantly less favorable attitudes to violence at the 12-month follow-up. No other results were significant.

While RIPP did not significantly reduce nonphysical aggression, drug use, or anxiety, students who made the greatest gains exhibited relatively higher pretest scores for problem behaviors. This suggests that RIPP might have its strongest effects on students who are most at risk.

Study 2
Violent Behavior
The results of the Farrell and colleagues (2003b) study showed small significant effects of RIPP on some measures for some follow-up periods. RIPP students reported significantly lower aggression at the 9-month follow-up and significantly lower victimization for boys only at the second midpoint (beginning of seventh grade) and at the 4-month follow-up.

At the 9-month follow-up, the control group was 40 percent more likely than RIPP participants to report having threatened someone with a weapon and 60 percent more likely than RIPP participants to have been injured in a fight (odds ratio=1.6) in the previous 30 days. All other measures were nonsignificant.

Attitudes towards Violence
At the 9-month follow-up, the RIPP group showed significantly higher approval of nonviolence and life satisfaction. Effect sizes remained small, however.

Other Information:

References:

Farrell, Albert D., Aleta L. Meyer, and Kamila S. White. 2001. “Evaluation of Responding in Peaceful and Positive Ways (RIPP): A School-Based Prevention Program for Reducing Violence Among Urban Adolescents.” Journal of Clinical Child Psychology 30(4):451–63.

Farrell, Albert D., Aleta L. Meyere, Terri N. Sullivan, and Eva M. Kung. 2003a. “Evaluation of the Responding in Peaceful and Positive Ways (RIPP) Seventh Grade Violence Prevention Curriculum.” Journal of Child and Family Studies 12(1):101–20.

Farrell, Albert D., Robert F. Valois, Aleta L. Meyer, and Ritchie P. Tidwell. 2003b. “Impact of the RIPP Violence Prevention Program on Rural Middle School Students.” Journal of Primary Prevention 24(2):143–67.

Meyer, Aleta Lynn, Albert D. Farrell, Wendy Bauers Northup, Eva M. Kung, and Laura Plybon. 2000. Promoting Nonviolence in Early Adolescence: Responding In Peaceful and Positive Ways. New York, N.Y.: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.

Program Specification:

New Rating:

Promising

Re-reviewed Date:

June 2011

Program Type:

Classroom Curricula

Conflict Resolution / Interpersonal Skills

School/Classroom Environment

Ethnicity:

African American

Gender:

Both

Age:

10 - 15

Target Settings:

Urban

Problem Behaviors:

Aggression/Violence

Alcohol,Tobacco and Other Drug Use

Delinquency

Gang Activity

Trauma Exposure

Risk & Protective Factors:

Risk

Community

Availability of firearms

Community crime / High crime neighborhood

Economic deprivation / Poverty / Residence in a disadvantaged neighborhood

Neighborhood youth in trouble

Family

Broken home

Individual

Antisocial behavior and alienation / Delinquent beliefs / General delinquency involvement / Drug dealing

Early onset of aggression and/or violence

Favorable attitudes toward drug use/Early onset of AOD use/Alcohol and/or drug use

Gun possession / Illegal gun ownership and/or carrying

Life stressors

Poor refusal skills

Victimization and exposure to violence

Peer

Association with delinquent and/or aggressive peers

Gang involvement / Gang membership

Peer alcohol, tobacco, and/or other drug use

School

Negative attitude toward school / Low bonding / Low school attachment / Commitment to school

Protective

Community

Presence and involvement of caring, supportive adults in the community

Individual

Healthy / Conventional beliefs and clear standards

High individual expectations

Positive / Resilient temperament

Positive expectations / Optimism for the future

Self-efficacy

Social competencies and problem solving skills

Peer

Good relationships with peers

Involvement with positive peer group activities

School

High expectations of students

High quality schools / Clear standards and rules

Presence and involvement of caring, supportive adults in school

Additional Information:

SAMHSA: NREPP

Department of Education

Status:

Program is in operation at this time.

Performance Measures:

Suggested OJJDP Performance Measures for the Program Types(s):

Delinquency Prevention
Classroom Curricula
Logic Model: PDF
Performance Matrix:PDF
School Programs
Classroom Curricula
Logic Model: PDF
Performance Matrix:PDF
School Programs
School/Classroom Environment
Logic Model: PDF
Performance Matrix:PDF

Contact Information:

Program Developer:
Wendy Bauers Northup
Prevention Opportunities, LLC
12458 Ashland Vineyard Lane
Ashland, VA 23005
Phone: 8042618547
Fax: 8042618580
Email: Click Here
Website: Click Here