PEACE Signs: Using the Power of Theatre to Prevent Violence
PEACE Signs is a multi-intervention violence prevention program for students in grades 3-6 offered by Kaiser Permanente's Educational Theatre Programs. The program includes: a one-hour theatrical performance for students, follow-up classroom workshops, and a Family Night performance. Students are our primary beneficiaries, followed by their teachers and their families. We provide support to school counselors and administrative staff members as well.
Our primary focus is violence prevention for and among students, covering topics such as name calling, exclusion, bullying, gun and gang violence, and domestic violence. Within the play, four students are experiencing these types of violence on the school playground and at home. The students are brought together by a student teacher, Mr. Harrington, who introduces a five-step conflict resolution model called the "Stoplight Solution."
A substantial amount of the play is devoted to one character whose father is emotionally and physically abusive to his wife. The effects of domestic violence on children are made apparent, and solutions are offered to children who are experiencing it in their homes, while making certain they understand that they are not to blame.
After both the student performance and the Family Night, the cast members, known as performer/educators, facilitate question-and-answer sessions with the audience. During this time, the prevalence of domestic violence in society is discussed, and resources are available to families that are experiencing domestic violence. In some communities, we have created partnerships with domestic violence prevention organizations. These organizations come to the school to provide support and often facilitate after-school programs once PEACE Signs has concluded.
Our program is inspired by the preventative health approach of Kaiser Permanente. We introduce these skills at a young age to inspire our youth to make healthy choices for the rest of their lives.
About You
Location
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Your idea
Focus of activity
Education
Year the initiative began
1997
Position your initiative on the mosaic of solutions
Which of these barriers is the primary focus of your work?
Culture Of Acceptance
Which of the insights is the primary focus of your work?
Create Paths to Prevention or Remediation
If you believe some other barrier or insight should be included in the mosaic, please describe it and how it would affect the positioning of your initiative in the mosaic
Name Your Project
PEACE Signs: Using the Power of Theatre to Prevent Violence
Describe Your Idea
PEACE Signs is a multi-intervention violence prevention program for students in grades 3-6 offered by Kaiser Permanente's Educational Theatre Programs. The program includes: a one-hour theatrical performance for students, follow-up classroom workshops, and a Family Night performance. Students are our primary beneficiaries, followed by their teachers and their families. We provide support to school counselors and administrative staff members as well.
Our primary focus is violence prevention for and among students, covering topics such as name calling, exclusion, bullying, gun and gang violence, and domestic violence. Within the play, four students are experiencing these types of violence on the school playground and at home. The students are brought together by a student teacher, Mr. Harrington, who introduces a five-step conflict resolution model called the "Stoplight Solution."
A substantial amount of the play is devoted to one character whose father is emotionally and physically abusive to his wife. The effects of domestic violence on children are made apparent, and solutions are offered to children who are experiencing it in their homes, while making certain they understand that they are not to blame.
After both the student performance and the Family Night, the cast members, known as performer/educators, facilitate question-and-answer sessions with the audience. During this time, the prevalence of domestic violence in society is discussed, and resources are available to families that are experiencing domestic violence. In some communities, we have created partnerships with domestic violence prevention organizations. These organizations come to the school to provide support and often facilitate after-school programs once PEACE Signs has concluded.
Our program is inspired by the preventative health approach of Kaiser Permanente. We introduce these skills at a young age to inspire our youth to make healthy choices for the rest of their lives.
Innovation
Description of Initiative
PEACE Signs is a multi-intervention violence prevention program for students in grades 3-6 offered by Kaiser Permanente's Educational Theatre Programs. The program includes: a one-hour theatrical performance for students, follow-up classroom workshops, and a Family Night performance. Students are our primary beneficiaries, followed by their teachers and their families. We provide support to school counselors and administrative staff members as well.
Our primary focus is violence prevention for and among students, covering topics such as name calling, exclusion, bullying, gun and gang violence, and domestic violence. Within the play, four students are experiencing these types of violence on the school playground and at home. The students are brought together by a student teacher, Mr. Harrington, who introduces a five-step conflict resolution model called the "Stoplight Solution."
A substantial amount of the play is devoted to one character whose father is emotionally and physically abusive to his wife. The effects of domestic violence on children are made apparent, and solutions are offered to children who are experiencing it in their homes, while making certain they understand that they are not to blame.
After both the student performance and the Family Night, the cast members, known as performer/educators, facilitate question-and-answer sessions with the audience. During this time, the prevalence of domestic violence in society is discussed, and resources are available to families that are experiencing domestic violence. In some communities, we have created partnerships with domestic violence prevention organizations. These organizations come to the school to provide support and often facilitate after-school programs once PEACE Signs has concluded.
Our program is inspired by the preventative health approach of Kaiser Permanente. We introduce these skills at a young age to inspire our youth to make healthy choices for the rest of their lives.
Innovation
Our approach is unique in incorporating the performing arts with our preventative efforts. In using this creative medium of expression, our performer/educators are able to reach the students in a fun and innovative way. Live theatre also effectively portrays the major elements of the students' world in a way that successfully incorporates and supports our message of violence prevention. Audience members gain a full understanding of the impact of these issues within their own lives. Furthermore, our theatrical performance includes popular music and modern-day colloquial language that engages the students and allows them to place themselves within the context of the play.
Our multi-intervention program reaches students in many ways. Prior to the start of the program at any school, we facilitate a staff orientation to introduce the program and levels of intervention to the participating teachers and administrative staff. The students are then taught violence prevention with the theatrical performance. We return to the students' classrooms to work with both the students and teachers in an educational setting and practice the conflict resolution and violence prevention skills presented in the play. During these classroom workshops, students also have the opportunity to further discuss what they saw in the play. The program concludes with a parental intervention at our Family Night. Families of students in grades 3-6 are invited to attend an evening performance of PEACE Signs where parents and siblings will learn the same conflict resolution and violence prevention skills the students have learned so they can all practice them at home.
Delivery Model
Throughout the year, we solicit our program to a variety of schools. Though we target high-risk schools in areas with frequent community violence, such as Oakland, California, and Richmond, California, we bring PEACE Signs to a diverse collection of neighborhoods because of the prevalence of domestic violence within society, a health issue that crosses race and socioeconomic lines. We serve all of Northern California, and to determine our service preference, we will research both schools we've visited in the past and schools we have not yet visited to evaluate where our program is needed most, based on campus demographics, school location, and the present level of violent activity within the area. We consult our Community Benefit program staff at Kaiser Permanente, who are dedicated to individual communities within our service areas, and we periodically receive school recommendations from various Community Benefit representatives.
Our communication system includes our performer/educators. The PEACE Signs cast is composed of five performer/educators who receive at least 120 hours of health education training each year on the violence issues presented in the play. They work closely with doctors, psychologists, and domestic violence experts throughout the touring season and are well-trained in conveying current and accurate information regarding domestic violence. The performer/educators perform a theatrical piece, address questions, and conduct classroom workshops to further students' education on violence prevention.
Once we have booked a school site, we solicit feedback to determine our impact. Students, teachers, and family members are presented with questionnaires to fill out and return. A few months after PEACE Signs has left the school, we follow-up with teachers to determine the lasting impact of the program. We encourage students, teachers, and family members to write us letters as well, describing the impact of PEACE Signs in their lives.
Key Operational Partnerships
We currently have three established partnerships within the San Francisco Bay Area. We have partnered with the Child Abuse Prevention Council of Contra Costa County, La Casa de las Madres in the city of San Francisco, and Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence in Santa Clara County.
For schools located within Contra Costa County, the Child Abuse Prevention Council facilitates a poster project with all students participating in PEACE Signs. The agency also offers mandated reporter training to the school staff free of charge.
Both La Casa de las Madres and Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence facilitate after-school programs at the school site once PEACE Signs has concluded. During the course of PEACE Signs, teachers and parents may refer their students to the after-school program, which models its sessions after PEACE Signs by utilizing the lessons taught in the play and classroom workshops. The after-school program is a follow-up to PEACE Signs intended to empower and build resilience in youth who are living in domestic violence homes through creative art projects.
These partnerships strengthen the impact of our program. In addition to providing the school with valuable community resources, the presence of these agencies encourages teachers to identify at-risk students, knowing that the students would be given the support they need.
Impact
Financial Model
PEACE Signs is provided entirely free of charge as a community service of Kaiser Permanente. Educational Theatre Programs and all of its productions are funded by Kaiser Permanente and are available to all community members, regardless of their affiliation with Kaiser Permanente.
What percentage, if any, of the total operating costs does earned income (from products, services, or other fees) represent?
0%
How is the initiative financed? Is it financially self-sustainable or profitable? How much do beneficiaries contribute?
PEACE Signs has been fully funded by Kaiser Permanente's Community Benefit program since our inception in 1997.
Effectiveness
Since its inception, PEACE Signs has served and educated 105,942 community members in Northern California. In 2006, 91% of students, 100% of teachers, and 99% of adult family members evaluated PEACE Signs as an excellent or good tool for violence prevention education and awareness efforts.
The implementation of our five-step conflict resolution model at school sites has provided students, teachers, and administrators with a simple and effective conflict resolution program, as indicated by our follow-up assessments and meetings. We have increased domestic violence awareness within all the communities we serve and have provided victims and survivors with invaluable local resources, evidenced by the popularity of our domestic violence prevention literature at Family Nights and the number of inquiries we receive at each of these events. The schools in San Francisco, California, and Santa Clara County, California, that have been identified as schools that can benefit from our partnerships have implemented after-school empowerment and support programs with the assistance of our partnering agencies for students that are witnesses of domestic violence.
How many people have benefited from your program over the last year? Which element of the program proved itself most effective?
Last year, 14,103 students and adults benefited from PEACE Signs. Each level of intervention is intended to reach students in different ways with the same amount of impact. However, the Family Night element is extremely effective because parents, guardians, and family members are able to see how PEACE Signs has positively influenced their child and his/her peers. Teachers and administrators are in attendance, as well as Educational Theatre Programs' staff members to provide additional support for the families. Adults and family members who view the performance are given the opportunity to see the effects of violence on a child through their child’s eyes. Following Family Nights, we are often approached by family members who have been inspired to make a positive change for the safety and happiness of their children. We make many referrals to local domestic violence support groups and other community resources at the Family Night as well.
Scaling up Strategy
Over the next three years, we hope to continue to build lasting partnerships in more communities. By connecting schools with local agencies, we can ensure that students, teachers, and families receive the additional support they need after the program is completed. This would require the identification of committed violence prevention agencies within various locales.
We would like to improve the condition of the schools we visit and help teachers to implement new and effective conflict resolution policies and violence prevention strategies. In the past, PEACE Signs has helped organize campus and community clean-up events, and we would like to see more of this in the future. Overall, we hope to continue to educate people about the state of violence in the community and encourage students to carry forward the message of peace.
Stage of the Initiative
2
Origin of the Initiative
In the early 1990s, there was a noticeable rise in violence being committed by and against youth across the nation, and in 1995, school staffs began to regularly address Kaiser Permanente's Educational Theatre Program with concerns regarding the presence of violence on the school playground. Just one year prior, Kaiser Permanente Health Survey results showed that members rated violence as one of the top three major health concerns in the community. Furthermore, we were becoming more aware of the prevalence of domestic violence in society. Kaiser Permanente has nearly a 60 year commitment to prevention, and Educational Theatre Programs saw this as an opportunity to address the needs of the community by developing a new program to teach youth about making safe, healthy, and non-violent choices that would enable them to be a catalyst for change. And thus, PEACE Signs was born.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
How did you hear about this contest and what is your main incentive to participate?
We are a member of Kaiser Permanente's Domestic Violence Prevention Task Force, which is a part of the Family Violence Prevention Program. FVPP submitted an entry to the contest and recommended that PEACE Signs participate as well.
Main Obstacles to Scaling Up
Funding is always an operational obstacle. As a health care provider, we aim to create theatrical programs that address a wide variety of health issues. The Educational Theatre Programs department as a whole has received adequate financial support over the years, but within the department, we must allocate funding based on our health initiative priorities at any given time.
Due to our broad service area, we cannot reach all target populations, given our staffing limitations. We simply do not have the man power, nor do we have the physical resources to put on multiple violence prevention productions, such as additional touring sets, in spite of our organization’s considerable financial support for the initiative.
Main Financial Challenges
As previously mentioned, the Educational Theatre Programs department faces the challenge of allocating funds based on health initiative priorities. Moreover, the distribution of funds to the Educational Theatre Department is affected by our department’s annual performance as well as the greater organization’s annual performance. Our budget changes from year to year.
In order to scale up operations – by renovating our set, creating new literature and resource materials, providing our staff with additional training, etc. – we would need approximately $400,000.
Kaiser Permanente is our sole investor.
Main Partnership Challenges
Our most difficult challenge is identifying partners whose mission and values are aligned with our own. Aside from the prevention of violence and domestic violence, we seek to empower young people to identify the problem and seek the help that they need. Another challenge we face is the implementation of partnerships. Teachers and administrators are often thrilled by the prospect of additional support for their students, but the additional required time can be an obstacle for schools, particularly those that are not performing well academically. Moreover, student participation in some of our partnership programs requires parental consent, which can be difficult to obtain because of the families’ desires to maintain confidentiality within the home.
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