Responding in Peaceful and Positive Ways 

RiPP is a school based violence-prevention program designed to provide students in middle and junior high schools with conflict resolution strategies and skills.

The Program combines a classroom curriculum of social/cognitive problem solving with real-life skill-building opportunities such as peer mediation. Students learn to apply critical thinking skills and personal management strategies to personal health and well-being; analyze the consequences of personal choices; learn that they have nonviolent options when conflicts arise; and evaluate the benefits of being a positive family and community role model. 

Target Population:

RiPP is a primary prevention program designed for the universal population of students enrolled in grades six, seven, and eight in middle and junior high schools. It is taught in 16 lessons each year over a three year period and is applicable to children for all socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, and cultural backgrounds.

It has been tested in predominantly African American urban schools in Virginia and in rural central Florida schools with more multicultural student populations. It is also being used in rural Virginia, Connecticut, and California as well as an urban New Jersey school district. 

It has been chosen by the U.S. Department of Education as one of the best classroom models for violence prevention and is being used as the curriculum in a large national study designed to see what works best in a middle school violence prevention program.  In this study, it is being taught in 20 schools across the country.