Promoting Non-violence in Early Adolescence

This series of monographs is dedicated to the increasingly vital area of prevention in healthcare. The works are organized into four categories of preventive practice: education, social competency enhancement, natural caregiving, and systems change. Tragedy should not and need not occur before a school or community begins making efforts to prevent violence.

This volume describes the steps taken by Responding In Peaceful and Positive Ways (RIPP), a program developed to promote non-violence' among students in middle schools. RIPP provides young people with new ways to respond to conflict. Using the acronym RAID, the students are taught four types of non-violent options: Resolve, Avoid, Ignore, and Diffuse.

By teaching that they have other choices in any conflict, the idea that fighting' is a necessary response to an insult or a conflict is dispelled. RIPP also teaches the need for everyone to accept differences, to affirm those with whom they come in contact, and not to engage in put downs' of others.

This empirically validated program has been proven to work in a variety of settings and was designed with real-life experiences in mind. It was originally developed and implemented in collaboration with school administrators in both urban and rural settings.