Introduction

Several recent publications related to violence prevention have highlighted the importance of creating connections across silos in this work. Hamby and Grych (2013) describe empirical support for a web of violence, characterized by research showing that different forms of violence co-occur and many forms of violence share common risk and protective factors. Shared risk and protective factors across multiple violence forms could more comprehensively be addressed via common prevention strategies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publication, Connecting the dots, highlights how prevention efforts need to be more comprehensive—looking beyond single forms of violence and including the array of common risk and protective factors (Wilkins et al., 2014). Banyard (2013) and Hamby et al. (2016) expand notions of connecting the dots by highlighting ways in which violence prevention can benefit from making linkages across developmental moments in the lifespan, across researcher and practitioner silos of expertise, and across topic areas in health promotion (for example, considering the prevention of risky health behaviors in conjunction with violence prevention).

In this chapter, we will provide an overview of how “best” and “promising” practices for intimate partner violence (IPV) (dating violence) and sexual violence (SV) among adolescent and young adults exemplify elements of a “connecting the dots” approach, and suggest directions for future research and practice to further such an agenda. As an illustration of both the potential and challenges of this work, we provide a case example of one statewide initiative that aimed to put some of these key elements into practice. We pay particular attention to school settings, as they have powerful potential as contexts where such connected work can take place.What “dots” do we need to connect? The following are key components of a more comprehensive and connected approach to dating violence and sexual assault prevention:

• • Creating prevention curricula that address more than one form of violence (DeGue et al., 2013; Hamby & Grych, 2013; Wilkins, 2014). This can be accomplished via curricula and tools that discuss more than one form of violence at a time, or by creating sequential and connected curricula that address different forms of violence.

• • Creating links between prevention efforts across time and development (Banyard, 2013).