Randomised Control Trial of the Learn to Be Safe with Emmy and FriendsTM Program: Evaluating Changes in Protective Behaviours Knowledge, Intentions and Disclosure of First Grade Students

Arm 1. Learn to BE SAFE with Emmy –5 x 1 hr weekly sessions focused on protective behaviour themes. Each session involves a teaching component and activities that revolve around the sessions theme. The key themes and an example activity for each week are outlined below. Week 1: Content focuses on body signals that indicate various emotions as well as emotions or signals that might indicate danger (i.e. early warning signs). Example activity: Match feelings to faces. Week 2: Content focuses on early warning signs and discriminating safe and unsafe situations. Example activity: Listing early warning signs. Week 3: Content addresses the concept of personal space and private body areas as well as teaching responses to personal space violations and information regarding disclosure. Example activity: Using pictures to colour public/private body parts Week 4: Content focuses on examples of safe and unsafe secrets and distinguishing between these. Encouragement is also given to disclosing potentially unsafe secrets to safe adults. Example activity: Picking safe vs unsafe secrets Week 5: The final session focuses on recognising and developing networks of safe adults from whom children may seek help. Example activity: Creating a 'hand of safety' Sessions are conducted with two trained facilitators from the non-for-profit organisation ACT for Kids and are run with classroom groups. A core component of the program is the use of an adult sized program mascot 'Emmy' to help illustrate key themes and model program strategies. Handouts of session content are also sent home to parents on a weekly basis. An audit will be conducted in 10% of sessions to ensure consistency of sessions. A roll call will be conducted for each session to assess how many sessions each participant received.