“Our Lesson: Safe Relationships” Examining The Effectiveness of School Counselors Implementations of The Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Program And The Moderating Effects
Articles > Article · 2025
Authors: Duygu Eslek, Türkan YILMAZ IRMAK, Abdulvahap Yorgun, Özen Güventürk
Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi Buca Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi, National Refreed University Journal, National, TR DİZİN (ULAKBİM), 2025, vol , pp 2951-2976
DOI: https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/deubefd/issue/94925/1583492
Summary
<p>In this study, it was aimed to investigate the effectiveness of school counselors’ implementations of "Our Lesson: Safe Relationships" program and the moderating effect of grade, gender, and socio-economic level (SES) on the effectiveness of school counselors’ implementations of the program. The participants consisted of a total of 273 early adolescents aged 9-13 (M = 10.9, S = 0.7) attending 5th and 6th grades, 137 in the intervention group and 136 in the comparison group. After the pre-test measurements, the "Our Lesson: Safe Relationships" program was implemented to the intervention group by school counselors for 6 weeks. The data collecting tools employed in this research are Personal Safety Awareness Scale, Sexual Health Knowledge, and Attitude Inventory, Safe and Unsafe Situation Assessment Form and the Regulation of Emotions Questionnaire. The statistical analysis was done using analysis of variance for repeated measures. The results pointed out that the gender variable did not have a moderating effect on the effectiveness of the program. In the intervention group, the amount of knowledge about abuse increased among participants from selected from the low SES neighbourhood where the school is located, 5th graders and selected from the midde SES neighbourhood where the school is located, 6th graders. An increase was detected in the intervention groups on behalf of the level of knowledge about sexuality, adolescence and gender. The protection from sexual abuse skills were increased in the intervention group from selected from the low SES neighbourhood where the school is located. Based on the data related to the emotion regulation, it can be concluded that the program did not have a negative emotional effect. Summarizingly, the implementations of the "Our Lesson: Safe Relationships" program by school counselors were found to be effective in increasing the knowledge and skill levels of early adolescents.</p>