A program to help girls avoid chronic partner abuse was piloted as an elective program in 10 Victorian secondary schools. The program was based on the Dyadic Slippery-Slope model of chronic partner abuse. It aimed to build participants' skills in recognising and responding assertively to early warning-sign behaviours by a partner. Five modules were delivered over one day: Choosing, Noticing, Responding, Ending and Bouncing Back. This paper reports on the results of a noncontrolled pretest to posttest evaluation, with a 3-month follow-up period. Seventy-five girls (M = 14.7 years) contributed preprogram and postprogram data. After the program, they demonstrated heightened awareness of the risks associated with warning-sign behaviours, increased self-confidence, decreased victim blaming, and more assertive intentions. Participants' assertiveness was related to their risk awareness, but only following the program. The program's focus on skill building is believed to have been crucial to its success. Although skills-based empowerment is a promising approach to preventing chronic partner abuse, more rigorous and extensive evaluation of this approach is needed.

Factors associated with chronic exposure to warning-sign behaviour (WSB) in girls' romantic relationships need to be understood in order to develop responsive prevention programs. Data was provided by 152 Australian adolescent girls (M = 14.7 years, range = 13 to 17), 66 of whom reported recent relationship experience and exposure to at least one WSB. Guided by the dyadic slippery-slope model of chronic partner abuse, relationships were tested between frequency of WSB exposure, perceived WSB risk, confidence in self-agency, and assertive tendency in romantic relationships. Girls who reported more assertive responses to WSBs reported less frequent exposure to WSBs in the past 3 months. Risk sensitivity, while weakly related to assertiveness in non-WSB-exposed girls, was unrelated to assertive tendency in WSB-exposed girls. Girls with greater WSB exposure had lower perceived self-agency, and lower perceived self-agency was associated with less assertiveness in response to Dominance and Possessiveness WSBs. These results are discussed in relation to dyadic slippery-slope theory, and point to the potential importance of strategically timed, empowerment-oriented programming in partner abuse prevention.