Healthy Young Adult Relationships Project

This proposal involves development of an educational intervention promoting healthy young adult relationships (HYAR). It addresses the public health challenge of intimate partner violence (IPV). Official UK statistics indicate that 2.3 million people reported experiencing domestic-abuse during 2020, the majority due to IPV. These figures include 14% female and 5.3% male victims aged between 16-19-years (1). IPV has been shown to result in physical and emotional harm, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic-stress disorder (2). The estimated cost of IPV is £66bn annually in England and Wales (3) and £931million in Northern Ireland (4). Knowledge and understanding of healthy intimate relationships is important for identifying when a partner is being abusive, as is help-seeking and navigating support services. However, effective education for young people (YP) on healthy intimate relationships is lacking in the UK (5,6), even though relationships and sexuality education (RSE) can contribute to long-term health improvements, reduce IPV, reduce discrimination, and increase gender equitable norms (7). We completed a survey with over 2000 YP aged 16 years exploring their knowledge and understanding of Coercive Control (CC) (8), a form of IPV acknowledged under UK legislation. Only 16% of respondents had heard of the term and understood its meaning. While IPV prevention programmes, delivered as part of RSE programmes, are available within some UK school settings, delivery is not consistent, and evidence of programme effectiveness limited (9). The proposed project responds to this public health challenge and will address the needs of YP aged 16-19-years, their parents, and youth-providers with regards to education about HYAR, including IPV. It will use an informal-education and community-based approach. This is aligned with UNESCO international technical guidance on sexuality-education (7), which forms part of the 2030 global education agenda and places stakeholder involvement at the forefront of planning RSE. Using qualitative-methods and co-research partnering with YP, the project aims to: (I)Conduct focus-groups with YP to identify characteristics and components of a user-informed intervention designed to increase knowledge and skills about healthy and unhealthy relationship practices; (II)Identify preferred modes of educational delivery regarding YP’s interpersonal relationships; (III)Identify differing ways of understanding how to report, monitor, and respond to IPV within YP relationships which are effective for the entire community; and (IV)Work with experts and YP to co-create a prototype intervention to promote HYAR and reduce risk of IPV and associated negative mental-health outcomes involving four weekly sessions, supplemented with an online-resource.