Preventing Intimate Partner Violence Across the Lifespan: A Technical Package of Programs, Policies, and Practices

This package highlights six strategies to prevent intimate partner violence:

• Teach safe and healthy relationship skills
• Engage influential adults and peers
• Disrupt developmental pathways toward partner violence
• Create protective environments
• Strengthen economic supports for families
• Support survivors to increase safety and lessen harms

The technical package is intended as a resource to guide prevention decision-making to help communities and states stop intimate partner violence before it starts, support survivors, and lessen the short and long-term harms of intimate partner violence.

Resources to Support the CDC’s Technical Package

NRCDV offers practical examples and tools to support the key strategies and approaches outlined within. These resources are drawn from NRCDV key initiatives and special projects including VAWnetPreventIPV, Safe Housing Partnerships, and Building Comprehensive Solutions to Domestic Violence. (Download the full list below.)

Teach safe and healthy relationship skills

Social-emotional learning programs for youth

• Special Collection: Fostering Resilience, Respect & Healthy Growth in Childhood and Beyond
• Prevention Tool: Hardy Girls Healthy Women
• Prevention Tool: Be Strong: From the Inside Out (Peace Over Violence)

Healthy relationship programs for couples 

• Special Collection: Preventing and Responding to Teen Dating Violence
• Prevention Tool: Start Strong (Futures Without Violence)
• Prevention Tool: In Touch With Teens (Peace Over Violence)
• Prevention Tool: Native Love (National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center)
• Prevention Tool: I Am Courageous (Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence)

Engage influential adults and peers

Men and boys as allies in prevention

• Special Collection: Men and Boys: Preventing Sexual and Intimate Partner Violence
• Prevention Tool: Current Practices and Challenges with Engaging Men on Campus (Men Can Stop Rape)
• Prevention Tool: White Ribbon Campaign
• Prevention Tool: Coaching Boys Into Men (Futures Without Violence)
• Prevention Tool: Te Invito (National Latin@ Network for Healthy Families and Communities)

Bystander empowerment and education

• Prevention Tool: Where do you stand? (Men Can Stop Rape)
• Prevention Tool: Hasta Aqui No Mas/Draw the Line (Mujer)
• Prevention Tool: See the Signs & Speak Out (Avon Foundation for Women)

Family-based programs 

• Prevention Tool: The Involved Fatherhood and Gender Equity Project (White Ribbon Campaign)
• Prevention Tool: Stand4Respect (Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the ICADV Youth Council)
• DV Evidence Project Program and Practice Profile: Caminar Latino
• Prevention Campaign: Skin-To-Skin Contact for Fathers and Their Babies (Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence)

Disrupt the developmental pathways toward partner violence

Early childhood home visitation

• Webinar: Addressing Domestic Violence in Home Visitation Programs (Futures Without Violence)
• Resource: Healthy Moms, Happy Babies (Futures Without Violence)
• Guidelines: Realizing the Promise of Home Visitation (Futures Without Violence)

Preschool enrichment with family engagement

• Promising Program: Head Start Trauma Smart: Creating Trauma-Informed Head Start Communities
• Prevention Tool: Breaking the Mould (The National Union of Teachers)

Parenting skill and family relationship programs

• Special Collection: Fostering Resilience, Respect & Healthy Growth in Childhood and Beyond
• Prevention Tool: The Amazing Brain Series (Health Federation of Philadelphia)
• Prevention Tool: The Involved Fatherhood and Gender Equity Project (White Ribbon Campaign)
• Prevention Campaign: Skin-To-Skin Contact or Fathers and Their Babies (Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence)

Treatment for at-risk children, youth and families 

• Project: Promising Futures: Best Practices for Serving Children, Youth, and Parents Experiencing Domestic Violence (Futures Without Violence)
• Paper: Promoting Recovery and Resilience for Children and Youth Involved in Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Systems (SAMHSA)
• Special Collection: Enhanced Services to Children and Youth Exposed to Domestic Violence: Promising Practices & Lessons Learned
• Practice Paper: Building Promising Futures: Guidelines for Enhancing Response of Domestic Violence Programs to Children & Youth

Create protective environments

Improve school climate and safety

• Applied Research: The Evaluation of Campus-Based Gender Violence Prevention Programming: What We Know About Program Effectiveness and Implications for Practitioners
• Critical Issue Brief: Addressing the Gendered Dimensions of Harassment and Bullying
• Prevention Tool: Safe Space Kit (GLSEN)
• Prevention Tool: Rethinking Schools
• Prevention Tool: Teaching for Change
• Prevention Tool: Teaching Tolerance

Improve organizational policies and workplace climate

• Special Collection: Employment and Domestic Violence
• Practice Guide: Building Mission-Effective Survivor-Defined Organizations
• Resource Center: Workplaces Respond to Domestic & Sexual Violence

Modify the physical and social environments of neighborhoods 

• Webinar: THRIVE: A Framework for Understanding the Community Determinants of Intimate Partner Violence
• Prevention Tool: The Community Resilience Cookbook

Strengthen economic supports for families

Strengthen household financial security

• Program: Financial Empowerment Curriculum (Allstate Foundation & NNEDV)
• Special Collection: Building Credit and Assets: Helping Survivors Recover from Economic Abuse
• Special Collection: Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Other Tax Credits
• NRCDV Public Benefits Reports: The Difference Between Surviving and Not Surviving: Public Benefits Programs and Domestic and Sexual Violence Victims’ Economic Security

Strengthen work-family supports 

• Organization: Legal Momentum
• Organization: National Partnership for Women & Families
• Campaign: Paid Sick Days
• Prevention Tool: See the Signs & Speak Out (Avon Foundation for Women)

Support survivors to increase safety and lessen harms

Victim-centered services

• Special Collection: Trauma-Informed Domestic Violence Services: Understanding the Framework and Approach
• Special Collection: Meeting Survivors’ Needs Research Project
• Project: Promising Futures: Best Practices for Serving Children, Youth, and Parents Experiencing Domestic Violence (Futures Without Violence)

Housing programs

• Project: Safe Housing Partnerships

First responder and civil legal protections

• Special Collection: Navigating the Legal System: Resources for Survivors of Domestic Violence, Their Advocates, and Legal Professionals
• Special Collection: Intimate Partner Homicide Prevention
• Safe Havens: Supervised Visitation and Safe Exchange Grant Program

Patient-centered approaches

• National Health Resource Center on Domestic Violence
• Special Collection: Reproductive Justice and Violence Against Women: Understanding the Intersections
• Special Collection: The Intersections Between Intimate Partner Violence and HIV/AIDS
• Special Collection: Traumatic Brain Injury and Domestic Violence: Understanding the Intersections

Treatment and support for survivors of IPV, including TDV

• National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma & Mental Health
• Project: Building Comprehensive Solutions to Domestic Violence
• Special Collection: Trauma-Informed Domestic Violence Services