Empowering Students for Healthier Relationships

Now a PhD candidate at the University of Utah College of Social Work, Kwynn’s dissertation project has three main components.  First, she did a qualitative study looking at the empowerment process model with college students who have experienced relationship abuse.  The theory behind the study suggests that people will move from a place of being disempowered to being empowered through a goal-oriented process.  “Understandably, a lot of research in this area focuses on the negative aspects of intimate partner violence,” she said.  “I felt drawn to this research because I wanted to consider if there is a piece of these experiences that’s positive in some way.”  To explore this, she did interviews with 18 college students who had, or were in the middle of, experiences of relationship abuse.  Though their specific circumstances varied, similar themes emerged:

• My partner tried to control who I could/couldn’t see.
• My partner didn’t respect my boundaries.
• My partner would blame me for their negative actions or behaviors.

Kwynn took these themes and rewrote them—reframing them as positive goal statements:

• I want to have control over my life, including what friends I have and when I hang out with them.
• I want my boundaries to be respected—physically, sexually, and through technology.
• I want my partner to be accountable for their actions.

By taking student experiences and re-writing them into personally focused goal statements, Kwynn hopes to help students move toward empowerment.  “Ultimately, I hope these goal statements are incorporated into advocacy with students.  These are something a counselor could pull out and say ‘These are things that a lot of college students say are important to them in their lives right now.  Does any of that resonate with you?’  This could be a way to start that conversation and help connect students to resources.”

The second part of Kwynn’s dissertation, a quantitative study that is just about to wrap up, is a randomized control trial that helps students identify possible safety-related needs through an online interaction decision aid.  “Safety planning is a tool used by advocates when people are in unhealthy and unsafe situations, but not everyone is going to seek care in a brick and mortar place or have access to an advocate.  This tool can be accessed on the web or as an app, so it’s highly accessible to whomever might need it.”  Kwynn went on to explain that once someone starts MyPlan, the tool prompts them to answer questions about their relationship.  Once they’ve answered everything, they’re given a “health rating” for their relationship.  Depending on how healthy or unhealthy the relationship is, and in what ways, the program gives them a tailored safety plan. 

If you download the app now, it gives out phone numbers and resources for national organizations.  But with seed grant funding from the College of Social Work, Kwynn worked with developers to change that to University of Utah and Salt Lake County resources.  “This makes the app more relevant to our local community,” she said.  “Providing local resources that people can easily access removes another barrier for those who need help.”  While her qualitative study looked at empowerment as a process, this quantitative study looks at empowerment as an outcome.  Students will be randomly assigned to either go through the app questionnaire or to review a control resource.  Kwynn will then measure whether students who access the app score higher on safety-related empowerment.