ABSTRACT
Social work practice has long focused on the connections between an individual and the social environment that affect the individual’s social functioning. The Rape Prevention and Education (RPE) Program’s theory model, Creating Safer Communities: The Rape Prevention and Education Model of Community Change, provides family social workers with a framework for examining and changing the individual and social factors that lead to sexual violence. This model connects two societal change theories, community readiness and diffusion of innovations, with three individual level theories, theory of reasoned action, theory of planned behavior and the health belief model, for the purpose of ending sexual violence. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) created this theory model to promote the use of theory-based prevention strategies among RPE Program grantees. In this article the authors (1) describe the theoretical underpinnings of the RPE theory model; (2) explore how one RPE grantee, supported with funding from the EMPOWER Program, used the RPE theory model to create a state sexual violence prevention plan; and (3) discuss how family social workers can utilize the model to promote sexual violence prevention within their own states and communities.
