When Prevention is Hard to Explain: Tools for Clear Communication
How prevention is communicated shapes how it is understood. Because this work is complex, long-term, and focused on changing conditions, its impact can be difficult to convey in ways that resonate with different audiences. Prevention makes a real difference in communities and it’s not always easy to explain, especially to the people whose partnership and investment are most needed to sustain it.
Earlier this year, PreventConnect hosted a two-part web conference series highlighting the foundations of sexual and intimate partner violence prevention. While the first session helped participants name the many shapes and forms prevention takes, the second session helped participants build confidence in communicating what prevention is, why it matters, and the impact it is having.
Talking about prevention can be challenging. Many people are uncomfortable with talking about sexual and intimate partner violence at all. Others may also carry misconceptions about sexual and intimate partner violence prevention, with some believing the myths that violence is a private matter or simply inevitable. Many of our advancements in sexual and intimate partner violence prevention stem from the field of public health, which can be unfamiliar or misunderstood even though public health strategies shape the conditions that affect all of our wellbeing. These barriers can be overwhelming for preventionists to overcome, but are not impossible.
Preventionists have many tools to help them message the incredible impacts of the work they do. The web conference took participants through RALIANCE & Berkeley Media Studies Group’s guide, Where we’re going and where we’ve been: Making the case for sexual violence prevention. This free resource helps preventionists break down barriers to communication, like discomfort or unfamiliarity, and tailor their message to distinct audiences. This resource also explores how messaging prevention as a journey story can help audiences see themselves and the role they can play in preventing sexual and intimate partner violence prevention.
Participants in PreventConnect’s web conference were also introduced to a messaging worksheet, which helps preventionists break down their message, tailor it to their identified audience, and start practicing how they’ll craft messages that support prevention. Messaging isn’t an inherent skill, but instead something that can be learned and practiced. When prevention practitioners invest in strengthening how they talk about prevention, it makes it easier for others to understand the value of this work, to support it, and to see themselves as part of it.
Prevention has the power to transform communities, and that transformation is already underway. The more clearly that story of transformation is communicated, the more the circle expands of people who recognize prevention as essential to collective wellbeing.