Mentors in Violence Prevention

The MVP Program employs its acclaimed training and curriculum for a wide variety of high school, college, and professional populations, locally and nationally. The interactive trainings consist of awareness-raising activities, skill-building activities and scenarios that utilize the program's key teaching tool, the MVP Playbook.

MVP utilizes train the trainer programs with accessible trainer's guides and supplemental materials to build a base of effective trainers. In high schools, young men and women are trained to be leaders in addressing sexist abuse through a 22 hour curriculum while male and female college student-athletes engage in provocative discussion about their role in changing the culture of their respective campus. The MVP Program hopes to expand the reach of its service to more high school and college students to address the issue of men's violence against women.

MVP also hopes to expand into workplace trainings where co-workers are often bystanders of domestic violence. The American Institute on Domestic Violence states that "78% of Human Resource Directors identify domestic violence as a substantial employee problem" and "56% of corporate leaders are personally aware of specific employees who are affected by domestic violence." MVP hopes to expand in to corporate trainings to educate employees on their role in the prevention of men's violence against women.

A main obstacle with the issue of men's violence against women is that many men do not understand that they are in the position to be role models to speak out against men's violence against women. Bystanders, or third parties, also do not always understand that they can play a role in preventing men's violence against women. Many bystanders do not think that it is their place to intervene, and those that do sometimes do not have the knowledge or tools to do so confidently. Therefore, this leads to silence and tacit acceptance of men's violence against women.

The largest obstacle in connection with this theme is that we live in a society that actively promotes men's violence against women. Messages endorsing gender inequality and violence are reinforced each day through the media, peer grouls and other social influences. Moreover, many of these messages come from role models, such as athletes, celebrities and politicians, that utilize their status to speak out against misogyny and violence. The MVP Program hopes to activate a change in society where all individuals see themselves as leaders who can play a role in preventing men's violence against women.

MVP National is presented in partnership by the Center for the Study of Sport in Society and the National Consortium for Academics and Sports. MVP also has existing relationships with numerous colleges, universities, high schools and university organizations that have utilized the MVP Program to continue educating their population about issues surrounding men's violence against women. MVP is the first program-wide violence prevention program for the Marine Corp, and hopes to expand into other branches of the armed forces (e.g. Navy, Army, Air Force, etc.).

The MVP Program hopes to change attitudes, knowledge and behaviors around issues surrounding men's violence against women. MVP aims to provide all potential bystanders with an understanding that gender violence, in any form, is an issue and that bystanders should feel like they can do something and actively intervene.

In an independent study, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health found that “MVP demonstrated both that the need for such programming clearly exists and that MVP was successful in beginning to meet that need. Survey data suggested that the MVP Program influenced a positive change in student participants in terms of their level of knowledge and awareness about gender violence, their attitudes towards gender violence, and their confidence to confront male violence against women in our society. Further, the evaluation data revealed that students who underwent MVP training were extremely satisfied with their experience in the program and that many changed their behavior because of it.”

MVP aims to mobilize a cohort of strong and active individuals who, with their continuous work towards educating bystanders on their role in the prevention of men's violence against women, create an atmosphere where violence of any kind (verbal, emotional, physical, sexual) becomes socially unacceptable.