Evaluating a consent and relationship education program to improve sexual violence knowledge, attitudes and behaviors among university students living in accommodation: a Non-randomized Controlled Trial

Physical/Informational Materials: Participants will engage in 2-hour long, facilitator-led, in person educational sessions. The sessions will be delivered by facilitators from the Sexual Assault Support Service (SASS). Facilitators will be sexual violence prevention specialists, with experience delivering primary prevention programs and specific training on the CaRE curriculum provided by SASS. The CaRE program (https://www.sass.org.au/education-and-training/education-in-schools) was originally created by the SASS Primary Prevention team in 2008 as “Consent is a Conversation” and delivered to approximately 18 Tasmanian primary and high schools each year under funding from the Department of Education, Children and Young People: DECYP (previously Department of Education) and a further 7-10 schools as a fee for service program. In 2023-2024, Consent is a Conversation was updated and renamed “CaRE (Consent and Relationship Education). The CaRE training program was further adapted for University participants in consultation with partners within tertiary education settings. This study will be the first large scale implementation of the adapted CaRE program in a University setting. As such, the materials used to develop CaRE have been developed for this study using existing resources. Facilitators of the CaRE program will use various materials to deliver the sessions including slides, handouts, and interactive digital tools such as quizzes. Sessions will be delivered in a group format at university residential accommodation venues. Sessions will be interactive, involving both facilitator-led discussions and participant-led group work. The CaRE intervention broadly covers four topics which are delivered in four individual sessions in this order; Session 1: rights and responsibilities, Session 2: power and social norms, Session 3: pro-social behaviors and Session 4: practicing consenting conversations. CaRE will be delivered in two formats. The first format delivered to the treatment arm (CaRE+) will consist of four sessions, as outlined above. The second format will be delivered to participants in the Exploratory arm. In this format, participants will complete session 1 and session 4 and a third session that participants choose between session 2 and 3. Participants in the Exploratory arm will self-select between sessions 2 and 3 based on their self-identified gender identity. These 2 sessions have been adapted to reflect the different ways people are socialized according to gender in order to capture how these differences shape both the risk and perpetration of sexual violence. Session 2 has been designed specifically for male-identifying participants, with a focus on challenging harmful norms, while Session 3 has been developed for participants who do not identify as male, centering on assertive communication. Both formats will be delivered face-to-face in university accommodation settings with each session delivered weekly over three or four weeks depending on the format. The intervention is designed to be implemented in group settings (up to 30 participants per group) and apart from the adaptations in sessions 2 and 3 as described above, the content is not personalized or adapted for individual participants. At this stage, participants in the standard CaRE group (who received three sessions) will not be offered the additional fourth session after the evaluation period. This decision reflects a combination of practical and resource-related considerations. The program is currently being delivered as part of a time-limited evaluation project, and there are no immediate plans or funding allocated for delivering additional standalone sessions once the evaluation concludes. However, findings from the evaluation will inform how CaRE may be delivered in the future, and we hope that all sessions or tailored versions of them will eventually be available more broadly, depending on institutional uptake and capacity. Facilitator adherence to the program curriculum will be assessed using fidelity sheets completed after each session. La Trobe University researchers will review the fidelity sheets as well as assess program reach by reviewing aggregated attendance data. Facilitators will also participate in regular debriefs and support sessions offered by SASS to maintain consistency and adherence to program delivery standards.