Latinx Respects: Soliciting Youth Input on a Theatre-Based Dating Violence Intervention

Background and Purpose: Teen dating violence is increasingly recognized as a national public health issue although few interventions are designed for Latinx youth. Further, most dating violence programs are school-based, despite that teachers are overburdened and there is a lack of time for lengthy programs with multiple sessions. Research supports that brief dating violence interventions, as little as one hour, can have lasting impacts on dating violence behaviors. Theatre offers a platform for brief intervention that embodies youth’s lived experiences through portrayal of similarly aged actor educators, thereby capturing youth’s attention and encouraging meaningful insights. The purpose of this study was to explore Latinx youth’s perspectives on the acceptability of a theatre-based dating violence intervention, including their recommendations to improve the play script to be culturally salient.

Methods: We partnered with a non-profit theatre organization to deliver a 20-minute play on teen dating violence to Latinx youth communities (ages 14-19; M_age= 15.51; SD=1.73) within a Midwest state. Youth were recruited from rural (n=2 sites; 23 participants) and urban areas (n=3 sites; 70 participants) through community agencies (e.g. Boys and Girls Clubs). Youth who self-identified as Latino/a/x were invited to view the play and then participate in two qualitative activities: 1.) small groups where they provided feedback on each section of the play and recommended how cultural values (e.g., familism, gender norms, cultural traditions) may be infused and 2.) a large focus group with questions pertaining to dating as a Latinx teen (e.g., family rules, dating norms), dating violence experiences, help-seeking, and bystander behaviors. Thematic analysis of these discussions generated recommendations to enhance the play for Latinx youth audiences.

Results: Themes pertaining to the contexts of the play included a focus on jealousy as a common precursor to youth’s arguments and changing the play to reflect the types of violence most common to teens (i.e., emotional, escalating to physical forms of abuse; bidirectional rather than one-sided and male-dominated). Youth’s suggestions for incorporating cultural norms included gender-related expectations, religious, and family values as well as contexts (e.g., meeting at a quinceañera). Finally, youth dialogue pertaining to help-seeking highlighted that youth would prefer to speak to family or a friend over a school counselor or a teacher, and would actively involve themselves as bystanders when witnessing dating violence.

Conclusions and Implications: This study responds to the need for a brief and culturally competent dating violence intervention for Latinx youth. There is a paucity of theatre interventions for dating violence and none to our knowledge have included Latinx youth voices in script development. Findings from this study will be utilized to adapt the dating violence theatre intervention for Latinx youth and to subsequently evaluate the intervention’s effectiveness using an experimental design. This research reflects a genuine and long-lasting collaborative partnership, innovative methodologies, and findings that are important to center the voices of marginalized populations in the design of culturally competent interventions.