An educational approach to preventing violence in Glasgow's secondary school students: The Medics Against Violence programme

Glasgow has a longstanding problem with violence, which is a significant cause of death and disability in young people (Leyland, 2006). As the majority of young peoples' social learning takes place at school, schools are ideally placed to implement primary prevention programmes (Wolfe & Jaffe, 1999). However, schools frequently implement youth violence prevention programmes without evidence of their effectiveness (Mytton et al., 2009). Therefore, the WHO argues that systematic evaluation of such programmes is necessary to effectively reduce youth violence (Krug et al., 2002). Medics Against Violence (MAV) is a primary prevention initiative to tackle violence among Scotland's youths (Goodall et al., 2010). MAV sessions involve a graphical demonstration of the consequences of violence and discussion of alternatives to violence, delivered voluntarily to classes of secondary school students by healthcare workers. They aim to change attitudes towards violence which mediate translation of aggressive thoughts into violent behaviour (Ikeda et al., 2001). The on-going evaluation utilises a mixed-methods approach. Changes in attitudes towards violence are measured using the Attitudes Towards Violence Scale (Funk et al., 2003) immediately before and after the session, and at 3-months. Focus groups are used to explore students' views on youth violence and experiences of the session. Additionally, sessions are observed and semi-structured interviews with teachers explore perceived effects on students' behaviour. This paper focuses on the evaluation of MAV presenting preliminary results, highlighting the utility of implementing the programme in classrooms and other settings as a means to tackle the global problem of violence.