Promoting Nonviolence 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.