EVALUATION OF A MEDICAL CENTER STAFF BYSTANDER INTERVENTION TRAINING FOR NO-HIT-ZONES: AN INNOVATIVE STRATEGY TO CHANGE SOCIAL NORMS REGARDING PHYSICAL PUNISHMENT

ABSTRACT

No-Hit-Zones (NHZ) use a public health approach to prevent violence against children. NHZs include bystander intervention training, educational materials, and an organizational policy that prohibits any form of physical hitting. This study is the first to assess the effectiveness of the NHZ bystander intervention training component exclusively. Following the training, staff were less likely to support the use of physical punishment, more likely to support intervention when witnessing physical punishment, and demonstrated increased knowledge about the NHZ policy. These results suggest that bystander intervention training is an integral part of NHZs' ability to establish a safe environment for children.

Keywords:

• No Hit Zone (NHZ)
• Physical punishment
• violence prevention
• Bystander intervention
• child abuse

Acknowledgments

We thank the Children’s Hospital of New Orleans for their collaboration, Emma Bergqvist for data entry and literature review assistance, Justine Romano Dellaria for providing valuable comments on the paper, and the National Children’s Alliance for funding the filming of the NHZ training video.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Deidentified data may be available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author in accordance with the governing IRB.