ConnectED Parents: Moving to virtual interventions to engage parents in the prevention of adolescent dating violence
Shift: The Project to End Domestic Violence is implementing, evaluating, and scaling ConnectED Parents, a multi-component, gender-transformative approach to prevent adolescent dating violence. This project builds the capacity of parents and caregivers of children aged 6 to 20 to foster their child’s healthy dating relationships through three co-occurring interventions:
- Parents receive brief text message interventions to build their knowledge and skills in fostering healthy dating relationships for their children.
- Alberta-based service providers that specialize in working with parents develop capacity to build a healthy social environment where these parents gather.
- Key influencers within these groups of parents build capacity to provide peer-to-peer supports.
To date, ConnectED Parents has engaged close to 375 parents, caregivers, and service provider leaders across Canada. The team has completed implementation and evaluation of the project and is currently focused on knowledge mobilization and scaling, including:
- Establishing a parenting Facebook group where ConnectED Parents is being implemented and evaluated.
- Training parent leaders to offer peer supports that reinforce healthy youth relationships.
- Launching text message learning modules that support parents to cultivate healthy relationship skills in their children.
- Developing two email learning series to build the capacity of service providers to build supportive, respectful parent spaces and parent leaders to offer peer support on healthy youth relationships. The series will launch in November 2025 and over 100 people are registered.
- Translating research findings and the ConnectED curriculum into micro-learning posts on LinkedIn and Instagram.
- Writing an academic article and community report to build the capacity of the violence prevention field.
- Developing an online resource library to share lessons from designing and evaluating ConnectED. This includes the design of a healthy social environments catalogue consisting of 100+ strategies to help service providers and community leaders build healthy social environments with parents.
- Presenting at conferences, hosting webinars, and participating in podcasts to reach diverse audiences.
Project link: https://preventdomesticviolence.ca/
In this Knowledge Hub presentation, Lianne Lee will outline the ConnectED Parents approach, highlight key lessons that can inform effective strategies for involving parents and caregivers in violence prevention efforts, and introduce the exciting launch of their text-learning modules across Canada.
Community of Practice members:
Lianne Lee
Lianne holds a Master’s Degree in Educational Research, and Bachelor’s Degrees in Education, Economics and Society, and English. Since 2006, she has led a broad range of community programs and systems-change initiatives that seek to enhance the wellbeing of children and youth from diverse backgrounds. Included is frontline work in after-school community programs early in her career and managing undergraduate programs and research projects at the Werklund School of Education’s Youth Leadership Centre. In addition to directing the Alberta Healthy Youth Relationships Strategy at Shift: The Project to End Domestic Violence, Lianne has helped to lead the design of a provincial primary prevention framework for Alberta to guide policies and practices that stop violence before it starts. Lianne is the Project Manager for this project.
Lana Wells
Lana Wells, BA (Hons) ’94, BSW’96, MSW’97, is an internationally recognized expert on domestic violence prevention, whose ability to work across disciplines, translate knowledge into action, and advocate for change has made her an invaluable contributor. As an associate professor in the Faculty of Social Work and the Brenda Strafford Chair in the Prevention of Domestic Violence, Wells founded and leads a primary prevention research hub called Shift: The Project to End Domestic Violence and in 2022, co-founded Shift to Learn an online prevention platform that is focused on building the social conditions that prevent violence before it starts. She supervises graduate students in the Faculty of Social Work and the School of Public Policy where she is also a research fellow. Wells earned the Alberta Inspiration Award in Leadership in Family Violence, was recognized as a PEAK scholar from UCalgary, received the John Hutton Memorial Award for Social Action/Policy from the Alberta College of Social Workers and was honoured in the YW’s She Who Dares 150 Women Project. In 2017, she received the UCalgary Teaching Award for Curriculum Development for the co-creation of the Advancing Healthy and Socially Just Schools and Communities graduate certificate program. In 2022, she received the Order of the University of Calgary in recognition for exemplary and distinguished service to UCalgary and the Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal which was awarded to Albertans in recognition of their significant contributions to the province. Wells has advised, consulted for, or partnered with all orders of government in Canada and hundreds of not-for profit organizations on advancing primary prevention efforts to stop violence before it starts. She has also been engaged by the UN and contributed to a resolution for the Human Rights Council on engaging men and boys in and addressing violence against women.
