Education Policy and Practice on Intimate Partner Violence Among Young People in the UK

Abstract

This paper presents a qualitative systematic review of educational policy and practice on tackling intimate partner violence (IPV) among young people in the UK. Up to date, the majority of school-based IPV interventions were conducted in the US and now there is growing consensus among UK policymakers, researchers and practitioners as well to address IPV issues through educational practice. This review aims at gathering evidence of the type and nature of policies and institutional level practice adopted to tackle IPV issues among young people within an educational context, and what impacts these interventions have on mitigating the occurrence of IPV. In undertaking this review, three databases (Eric, BEI and Scopus) were searched and grey literature was manually added. Findings from the review suggest that the majority of interventions were effective in altering attitude and promoting awareness of IPV. Still, longitudinal studies are needed to see if changes in attitude can be translated into the effective behavioural alteration in real-life situation. Although most students expressed satisfaction toward the existing interventions, it was also found that lack of consideration of gender can lead to uncomfortable feelings among students. There were contradictory views regarding whether teachers or external experts would be a better person to deliver the intervention and who was the person students preferred to turn to for help. Besides, country-wide interventions are needed to make sure all schools have an opportunity to provide IPV education, and the support from the UK government is of crucial importance to make this happen.