Interpersonal Safety Skills: Assessing and Evaluating Outcomes for Children

Abstract

The safety of children is a priority within society. Programs have been created to boost young children’s interpersonal safety skills, including teaching children how to recognise and avoid risky situations and when to disclose to safe adults. However, behavioural outcomes of these programs have rarely been evaluated, so general knowledge about children’s use of these skills following program participation remains limited. Few standardised measures exist to assess these behavioural outcomes of risk avoidance or disclosure. To fill this gap, a new measure of children’s interpersonal safety skills, the Observed Protective Behaviours Test (OPBT), was developed and three studies were conducted that used the OPBT. The OPBT included a simulated lure that assessed children's motor and verbal responses to the lure, as well as their disclosure. In Study 1, 611 children in Year 1 (5 to 7 years; 50% male), attending schools either allocated to receive Learn to be safe with Emmy and friendsTM or on a waitlist, completed three assessments over seven months. Children were individually interviewed at each assessment and parents completed surveys at home. When compared to waitlist, the program was effective in improving interpersonal safety knowledge (child and parent-rated) and parent-rated interpersonal safety skills from preto post-program. At a 6-month follow-up improvements were retained, with children who participated in the program also reporting increased disclosure confidence compared to children on the waitlist. However, improvements in intentions to disclose and safety identification skills, as well as interpersonal safety skills as measured by the OPBT, did not differ between program and waitlist conditions. In Study 2, the participants were 281 children who were assessed as part of Study 1. Two strata of children, those in Learn to be safe with Emmy and friendsTM or on a waitlist, were randomly assigned to participate in the OPBT (i.e., an in-situ training; IST) or not. Thus, four groups were compared: Waitlist, IST alone, Program alone, and Program+IST. All children completed two assessments separated by seven months. The IST was found to produce improvements, with children in the IST alone condition showing a greater increase in intentions to disclose compared to Waitlist, and children who participated in Program+IST showing greater improvements in disclosure intentions than those who received Program only or Waitlist, as well as displaying significantly greater increases in disclosure confidence compared to children who received Waitlist. In Study 3, the participants were 118 children who had participated in the OPBT without any other intervention component in Study 1. Prevalence of interpersonal safety skills as measured by the OPBT (withdrawal from an unknown confederate, verbal refusal of an abduction lure and disclosure of confederate presence) were summarised, and correlates of OPBT responses were examined. In total, 27% children withdrew from the confederate, 48% refused the lure and 83% disclosed the presence of the confederate. The only significant correlate of these skills was anxiety, with children who had greater anxiety disclosing earlier and being more likely to accept the lure. Overall, findings provide new information regarding training and correlates of interpersonal safety skills in young children. The Learn to be safe with Emmy and friendsTM program was effective in increasing safety knowledge, parent-rated safety knowledge and skills, and disclosure confidence. Further, using the OPBT as an IST resulted in greater increases in children's intentions to disclose and confidence in disclosure. However, whilst great variability was found in children’s use of interpersonal safety skills as measured by the OPBT, the only significant predictor found for these skills was anxiety. Several avenues for further research are suggested, including examining further predictors for interpersonal safety skills, expanding the OPBT to represent more interpersonal situations, evaluating the effectiveness of booster IST components on other interpersonal safety programs and expanding the age range of children examined.