Implementation of A School-Wide Adolescent Character Education and Prevention Program

School-based character education and violence prevention programs focus on improving prosocial competencies and reducing negative behaviors in students. The Capturing Kids’ Hearts Campus by Design model is a school-level intervention that impacts student behavior by enhancing school climate through improved relational and conflict management skills. The purpose of this randomized controlled study is to evaluate the effect of the intervention model on risk factors and protective factors that impact student behavior. The results demonstrate that the level of principal support and quality of faculty implementation is related to and predictive of student acquisition of specific prosocial behaviors (protective factors). Using school archival data for discipline referrals, univariate ANOVA analyses demonstrated that schools implementing Capturing Kids’ Hearts Campus by Design experienced on average a 22% decrease in discipline referrals whereas control schools experienced on average an 11% increase in referrals. In addition, students in intervention schools exhibited a 26% increase in prosocial behaviors associated with the training whereas students in control schools exhibited a 15% decrease in these behaviors.