The Safe in the Village (SITV) program is designed to start conversations about healthy relationships, and safe behaviors with Alaska Native youth. Included is a short movie, actor interviews, and a facilitation guide. The movie is a story about Matt, Sarah, and Ben, three friends in rural Alaska navigating life, and dealing with peer pressure around relationships, sex, friendships and alcohol. It demonstrates how decisions affect one’s future and the importance of having trusted adults and goals in life. The actor interviews are videos of them discussing key topics and the detailed guide covers planning, hosting, discussion tips and more.
There is no required training or certification. The facilitator can be any community member interested in supporting youth.
The SITV movie runs 35 min. and the supplemental actor interviews are 25 min. The estimated program duration is 3 hours which includes time for watching the movie and interviews and holding group discussions. The program could be broken into two 1-1.5 hour sessions: session 1 movie/group discussion, session 2 actor interviews/group discussion.
The Safe in the Village (SITV) video intervention was modeled after the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) evidence-based intervention (EBI) Safe in the City and the Altamed HIV web series Sin Vergüenza (Without Shame). The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium collected formative data from almost 100 youth ages 15-24 through in-depth interviews and surveys to understand perceptions, attitudes, and knowledge of HIV, and STIs, and healthy relationships as well as associated risk, and protective behaviors, and factors to develop key messages. These interviews and surveys provided the framework for developing the SITV program, which now includes the SITV movie and actor interviews.
The movie was filmed in Anchorage, Alaska and Kotzebue, Alaska during the winter of 2013-2014. The development process also involved engaging community members and stakeholders through creating a Community Advisory Board that reviewed the results and provided guidance and input during the program development phase and beyond. After SITV was completed ANTHC hosted movie showings in communities that participated in the formative data collection phase.
The feedback received thus far has been overwhelmingly positive.
The SITV program was evaluated by hosting SITV workshops with 105 youth ages 15-19 years old in and collecting pre and post surveys as well as online follow up surveys. Evaluation data analysis is currently underway.
It was a good movie and I bet it would have a powerful impact in the right setting! For our group, it did raise our awareness of village life. This discussion could really open up some great sharing. Thanks again!
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