HATFIELD, Pa., June 15, 2011 — Today, the School and College Organization for Prevention Educators (SCOPE) opened its doors and began welcoming its first members. SCOPE serves as an interdisciplinary hub for prevention educators. SCOPE is the first organization of its kind to encompass the full breadth and depth of the field of prevention. SCOPE prioritizes the advancement of primary prevention research, practice and implementation.
Schools, communities, agencies, colleges and universities all over the world employ prevention professionals who are tasked with addressing a range of high-risk violence, health and safety issues, but until now, no membership association has been able to bring these dedicated educators into community with one another. SCOPE fills that need.
SCOPE was created by a generous grant from the parents of a college student who wish to remain anonymous. Through their generosity, SCOPE can function and thrive independently as a not-for-profit association of like-minded professionals who serve the prevention needs of schools, colleges and communities in the United States and internationally.
Prevention professionals have historically joined professional associations, participated in listservs and attended conferences in their specific disciplines. This has resulted in the delineation of prevention efforts by subfields. SCOPE recognizes that there is more commonality to prevention efforts than there are distinctions. What alcohol abuse educators know can benefit what sexual violence prevention specialists do. Prevention of hazing and bullying have much in common. Additionally, we know that many areas of prevention intersect. SCOPE aims to bridge subfields by joining prevention professionals from across the prevention disciplines together to learn from one another, explore best practices and further shared goals.
Conferences focused at school, college and community audiences address sexual assault, eating disorders, peer education, advocacy, alcohol, hazing, drugs, suicide, mental health and other risks. Until now, no conference has gathered prevention professionals in a multi-disciplinary setting to guide, shape and lead the prevention field. SCOPE's Annual International Conference will bring school, college and community prevention educators together to share resources, apply research, and empower the synergies that result from bringing the disparate constituencies of prevention together into common cause.
Knowledge Groups are a central SCOPE resource. Knowledge Groups represent specific content areas relevant to the field of prevention. Members participate in one or more Knowledge Groups, as well as having access to topical materials. SCOPE's Knowledge Groups include:
- Advocacy
- Alcohol Abuse
- Bullying
- Bystander Intervention
- Drug Abuse
- Eating Disorders
- Hazing
- Mental Health
- Peer Education
- Primary Prevention
- Relationship/Domestic/Intimate Partner Violence
- Research
- Sexual Assault
- Social Norms
- Stalking
- Suicide
SCOPE embraces an ecological, inclusive, holistic, feminist, public health, evidence-based and multi-disciplinary vision of prevention. To effectively promote the aims of the prevention community, SCOPE members deeply examine the causes of violence, health and safety risks within society — including hate, intolerance, apathy, gender bias, racism, homophobia, stigmatization of mental health, objectification of the human body, ignorance, predation and discrimination — to foster effective, interconnected, strategic prevention.
For more information, please visit http://www.WeAreSCOPE.org or contact:
Michelle Issadore, M.Ed.
Executive Director
Email
610-993-0227
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