Abstract

Cultural stereotypes and paternalistic environments provide variables which create an environment where many women have little opportunity or reinforcement for learning and maintaining behaviors which are instrumental in surviving successfully in their lives. Survival Skills for Urban Women was developed as a skill training and supportive program to provide opportunities and reinforcement for learning behaviors which lead to independence from traditional social institutions. Fourteen replications of the ten-workshop program indicated similar success with a variety of groups of women, in several types of settings, and across nine different trainers. Results of these analyses indicated that the program provided a supportive environment for learning and practicing new skills and that training effects maintained outside the workshop settings and across time.