Skip Navigation

Safe Dates


“Safe Dates is a multi-component prevention program designed for middle and high school students. Designed primarily for co-educational groups in the 8th and 9th grades, the program aims to challenge violence-supportive attitudes and norms, increase student self-efficacy in violence-related help-seeking and supporting friends, enhancing healthy relationship skills and reducing physical and sexual abuse perpetration and victimization in the context of dating relationships. Safe Dates consists of several components: a 10-session school based curriculum delivered in 45 minute segments, a school-wide poster contest, parent materials, and a teacher training outline. The program can also include a follow-up booster session and a script for a dramatic play”.

Program evaluation:

“Safe Dates has been rigorously evaluated over a several-year period. A randomized control trial of the program was conducted based on an implementation in North Carolina public schools in 1994. A four-year post-intervention follow-up found that students participating in the intervention reported perpetrating significantly less physical and sexual violence with dating partners than did control group members (Foshee et al., 2004). Intervention group members also reported decreased sexual victimization by dating partners than control group participants. Additional information about this program can be obtained at the SAMSHA model program website
– Information about Safe Dates provided by “Promising Practices in Sexual Violence Prevention and Community Mobilization for Prevention: A Report to the City of Seattle” by Erin Casey, Ph.D., MSW

Links to Information about Safe Dates

Evaluation Articles

  • Vangie A. Foshee, PhD, Karl E. Bauman, PhD, Susan T. Ennett, PhD, G. Fletcher Linder, PhD, Thad Benefield, MS and Chirayath Suchindran, PhD, (2004) Assessing the Long-Term Effects of the Safe Dates Program and a Booster in Preventing and Reducing Adolescent Dating Violence Victimization and Perpetration, American Journal of Public Health, April 2004, Vol 94, No. 4, 619-624 Abstract
  • VA Foshee, KE Bauman, WF Greene, GG Koch, GF Linder and JE MacDougall (2000) The Safe Dates program: 1-year follow-up results,American Journal of Public Health, Vol 90, Issue 10 1619-1622. Abstract
  • V A Foshee, K E Bauman, X B Arriaga, R W Helms, G G Koch, and G F Linder, (1998)An evaluation of Safe Dates, an adolescent dating violence prevention program. American Journal of Public Health, January 1998; 88(1): 45–50. Abstract
  • Foshee VA, Linder GF, Bauman KE, Langwick SA, Arriaga XB, Heath JL, McMahon PM, Bangdiwala S. (1996), The Safe Dates Project: theoretical basis, evaluation design, and selected baseline findings. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 1996 Sep-Oct;12(5 Suppl):39-47. Abstract