The Adolescent Male Outreach Program results in decreased interpersonal violence among the peers themselves and among those they reach through education and prevention efforts. Results include peers who:

• 1) Understand the concepts of personal safety and healthy relationships and male reproductive health
• 2) Employ skills and strategies that enable them to avoid/resist/defuse violent situations
• 3) Demonstrate skills to interact in non-violent ways
• 4) Avoid and/or stop committing interpersonal violence

The program addresses the problem of interpersonal violence, especially sexual violence/dating violence perpetrated by males, who are responsible for over 95% of sex crimes. Addressing such violence among adolescent males requires a challenge to societal norms that link manhood to dominance, toughness, and male honor and that perpetuate the myth that violence in relationships is acceptable. By educating males about the legal definitions of rape and the boundaries of unacceptable dating violence, studies show that males become significantly less likely to offend and more likely to speak out against the stereotypes that perpetuate violence in their communities.

The Peers participate in an initial weekend retreat and then bimonthly meetings to discuss myths, strategies, prevention skills, and facts around interpersonal violence and to receive guidance in planning their individual outreach and education strategies.

A prevention educator from KCSARC and a Family Planning Health Educator co-facilitate the Peer group meetings using three evidence-based curricula that educate youth on the stages of change in attitudes and behavior (so that peers can recognize success in even small changes they help bring about), bystander intervention, and family and sexual health. The facilitators also address topics that the peers bring to the meetings and give them opportunities to "debrief" on their outreach efforts.

• The program addresses the problem of interpersonal violence, especially sexual violence/dating violence perpetrated by males, who are responsible for over 95% of sex crimes. Addressing such violence among adolescent males requires a challenge to societal norms that link manhood to dominance, toughness, and male honor and that perpetuate the myth that violence in relationships is acceptable. By educating males about the legal definitions of rape and the boundaries of unacceptable dating violence, studies show that males become significantly less likely to offend and more likely to speak out against the stereotypes that perpetuate violence in their communities.
• The project recruits adolescent males who have demonstrated leadership in a variety of traditional and nontraditional settings, ranging from skate groups to sports teams to music groups.
• The group is made up of two male representatives from each of the public high schools in Federal Way, for a total of ten. The participants attended Truman, Federal Way High School, Decatur, Thomas Jefferson, and Todd Beamer.
• Participant ages ranted from 14 to 19 and one-third of the group self identified as men of color.
• Each peer reaches at least 20 other youth through peer-to-peer interventions and education. They reach hundreds of additional youth through larger group presentations, outreach materials, and MySpace messaging.

We collected qualitative and quantitative data throughout the school year to assess progression towards the outcomes of the project. This was done through interviews with the participants themselves, informally surveying students within the participant's schools and pre /post testing of the participants.

Stated outcomes included:

• Double the number of young men during Public Health Teen walk-in teen clinic, so that young men under 21 will make up 20% of teen clinic clientele.
• Participants are indentified by their peers as a resource within their community for information pertaining to Public Health clinic services, KCSARC services, basic reproductive health, and sexual violence.
• Participants understand identified concepts of personal safety and healthy relationships.
• Participants employ skills and strategies that enable them to avoid/resist/defuse and respond to violent or potentially violent situations.

Highlights of programmatic outcomes include:

• All of the peers reported that they now talk with their peers regarding men's role in ending sexual violence (vs. 11.1% before the project)
• There was a more than 50% increase in the number of times peers used their skills to diffuse potentially violent situations after the project.
• 90% of peers said they would know what to do if a friend told them they had been raped or abused (vs. 22% prior to the project)
• 67% of the peers could recite the number for the 24 hour crisis line (vs. 0% prior to the project)
• There was an overall decrease in participants' acceptance of violence indicators such as the myth that women who wear tight clothing deserve to be raped or that jealousy is a good indicator of love.

"I made a difference in some of my friend's lives."

"I felt like I helped a lot of people really stay calm through a situation."

"Not many guys have information on this, so to be one of the guys that does have information on it kind of gives you a chance to teach eachother."

"I just grew to love the project and now I don't want to leave it!"

"Trying to change people from pre-contemplation to contemplation...Like talking to one of your friends about hooking up with drunk girls, when he's completely sober, thinks like that, like changing people's ideas on things like that specifically, are really hard to do. They kind of just get mad and then they don't listen, but you still have to listen, and like, figure out a way to talk to them to actually get them to understand what you're trying to say instead of just fighting with them."

"All of the adults I talk to about this they think it's a pretty big deal. They told me I should really put it down on my college applications and stuff like that. Because they never really heard of anybody else that's done anything like this."

"This impacted my sexual health positively, like all the things we learned, I can easily put it all into my own life and the lives of people that are pretty close to me."

"Just getting used to talking about it, in general, like in a group, you don't talk about it the way you normally would. Just the fact that you are used to addressing the issues I feel like, a lot more comfortable doing it in my own life."

"It really changed the way I feel about things, the biggest influence it has on who I am, is that I am actually going to be majoring in social work in college, so it has impacted my career choice, I want to be in this work for the rest of my life because of this project, so it is a big deal!"

"I know that there is still a lot more that can be done and there is a lot more to know."

"It made me more open minded about the choices other people make and a lot more insightful into how in depth this topic actually is."