SAFE’s Expect Respect program works to promote healthy relationships and prevent violence among children and teens. We provide innovative, research-based trainings and collaborate with schools, health-care, law enforcement, and other youth-serving organizations to create safer environments.

Expect Respect offers a comprehensive program manual and a training/consultation package to assist others in replicating the program.

Program Manuals

This new edition of the manual builds upon three decades of programming and evaluation to bring you a comprehensive, research-based violence prevention program that can be replicated in your community. The Expect Respect manuals provide you with everything you need to implement this program in your school or organization.

The 4-book set includes:

1) Program introduction and overview

2) Support group curriculum for students in grades 3-5 (16 sessions)

3) Support group curriculum for students in grades 6-12 (24 sessions)

4) Guide for developing youth leaders.

Consultation/Training

The Expect Respect Team is available to assist you in creating or expanding existing prevention programming in your community. We believe a comprehensive approach is needed to break the cycle of abuse in children’s lives and to prevent violence from happening in the first place. Our multi-level strategies aim to:

  • Increase safety, social support, and relationship skills among vulnerable youth (School-based support groups, counseling, and advocacy)
  • Engage and train youth as leaders to create safer and more welcoming school environments (youth leadership training and awareness activities)
  • Increase capacity for school-wide responsiveness and prevention (policy/protocol for responding to incidents and disclosures, staff and parent training, teacher-led classroom lessons)

The Expect Respect consultation/training package is customized to meet your needs and is designed to allow your school and community partners to participate.

For more information and to discuss consultation/training options and fees, please contact Shannon Sandrea, ssandrea@safeaustin.org.

To download the brochure about our Expect Respect manuals and training, click here.

Liz Miller, MD, PhD Director, Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine, UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh Professor of Pediatrics

"I am so thrilled to be bringing the Expect Respect curriculum to Pittsburgh for evaluation among 7th and 8th grade students in 36 middle schools in western Pennsylvania. Providing safe spaces for young people to further develop communication skills, understand the different forms of abuse, and learn tools for building healthy and safe relationships is so vital. In partnership with Center for Victims, University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work, Slippery Rock University, VOICE, The SAFE Alliance, and multiple stakeholders, we are excited to implement Expect Respect as a model for enhancing resiliency of young people."

Rebecca Mooney, Executive Director of Melrose Alliance Against Violence

"The Expect Respect trainers were extremely knowledgeable and experienced and were a pleasure to work with. They effectively engaged our school and community counselors, teachers, and administrators through the highly interactive and excellent training. From that training, several program champions emerged who were able to implement the Expect Respect support groups in our middle and high school."