Coaching Boys Into Men

CBIM utilizes a cascade training model that builds local ownership and long-term sustainability. Certified CBIM Advocates prepare and support coaches, while coaches implement the curriculum directly with their teams throughout the sports season.

Tier 1: CBIM Advocate Training (Training of Trainers)

Duration: 3-4-day certification program delivered through a blended learning model that combines live facilitator-led sessions with asynchronous online learning, practical assignments, and interactive skills practice. Upon completion, participants become certified CBIM Advocates qualified to train coaches and lead implementation within their communities.

Target participants:

• Community leaders
• Faith-based leaders
• School administrators
• Athletic directors
• Educators
• Youth-serving professionals
• Coaches' supervisors
• Other local champions positioned to oversee implementation

Overview

The CBIM Advocate Training prepares participants to become certified trainers and implementation leaders capable of introducing, adapting, implementing, and sustaining CBIM within schools, sports organizations, faith communities, and community-based settings.

Participants develop a comprehensive understanding of the CBIM curriculum, safeguarding measures and procedures, evidence base, implementation model, and core principles while strengthening their facilitation, coaching, partnership-building, and leadership skills. Through interactive instruction, facilitation practice, role-playing, community action planning, and peer learning, Master Trainers learn to:

• Deliver the CBIM Coaches Clinic with fidelity.
• Support coaches throughout the sports season.
• Adapt the curriculum to local cultural contexts while maintaining its evidence-based core elements.
• Build partnerships with schools, sports organizations, faith communities, and community stakeholders.
• Provide ongoing technical assistance, quality assurance, and implementation support.

Key Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:

• Master the evidence base, curriculum, and core principles of CBIM.
• Facilitate and certify coaches through the CBIM Coaches Clinic.
• Practice discussion-based facilitation using the CBIM Coaching Cards.
• Adapt the curriculum while maintaining fidelity.
• Build partnerships and effectively communicate CBIM's value.
• Develop implementation, sustainability, monitoring, and coach support plans.

Tier 2: CBIM Coaches Clinic

Duration: Approximately 2–3 hours (minimum 90 minutes), delivered in person prior to the start of the sports season.

Target Participants

• School-based coaches
• Community sports coaches
• Coaches working directly with adolescent boys and young men

Overview

The CBIM Coaches Clinic prepares coaches to confidently implement CBIM by equipping them with the knowledge, practical skills, and facilitation techniques needed to serve as trusted mentors and positive role models.

Following the clinic, coaches implement CBIM through 12 weekly, 15-minute mentoring conversations integrated into the sports season. Using locally contextualized CBIM Coaching Cards, a practical, easy-to-use facilitation tool that provides weekly objectives, discussion prompts, conversation guides, and key take-away messages, coaches confidently lead interactive, athlete-centered discussions that introduce a new topic and skill each week. The cards are designed to support coaches, regardless of their prior experience with these topics, by providing a structured yet flexible framework that encourages authentic dialogue and relationship-building. Weekly sessions address respect and personal responsibility, mental health and well-being, healthy relationships, consent, communication, conflict resolution, challenging harmful norms and stereotypes, digital respect, controlling anger and aggression, promoting greater equality, leadership, and positive bystander intervention. 

Coaches guide meaningful discussions that encourage reflection, critical thinking, and practical application, helping athletes build the confidence and skills to foster healthy relationships, challenge harmful norms, intervene safely when witnessing disrespect or violence, and become positive leaders within their teams and communities.

Throughout implementation, coaches receive ongoing mentoring, technical assistance, and implementation support from certified CBIM Advocates.

Key Learning Objectives

Coaches will be able to:

• Understand the evidence base, goals, and core principles of CBIM.
• Confidently facilitate the 12 weekly mentoring conversations using the CBIM Coaching Cards, which provide scripted messages for 10-15 min sessions.
• Promote healthy relationships, greater equality, consent, positive mental well-being, and positive bystander intervention among athletes.
• Apply discussion-based facilitation techniques that encourage participation, reflection, and leadership.
• Develop a season implementation plan and partner with a CBIM Master Trainer for ongoing coaching and technical support throughout the sports season.

Together, this two-tiered training model creates sustainable local capacity by preparing Master Trainers to build and support a network of coaches who, in turn, mentor young athletes and help foster safer teams, healthier relationships, and more equitable communities.

Between 2009 and 2011, a FUTURES randomized controlled trial among 1,513 high-school athletes (ages 14-18) showed that although CBIM showed no impact at the end of the sports season [6-Miller, 2012], one year later, boys who participated demonstrated:

• Decreased negative bystander behaviors (e.g., saying nothing or joining in) if classmates were engaged in harmful behavior, compared with the control group
• Increased bystander interventions
• And lower perpetration of physical, sexual, or emotional relationship violence in the past 3 months. This difference was more pronounced among athletes who received more cards.
• However, there were no differences in recognizing violence, gender-equitable attitudes, or intention to intervene between participating and non-participating athletes [7].

A secondary analysis of these data looked at dating violence perpetration separately and found:

• Slight decreases in dating violence perpetration among participating athletes (sexual harassment, 10-9.6%; sexual assault, 3.2-2.2%; and dating abuse: 16.5 to 14.9%).
• In contrast, perpetration increased among the control group (sexual harassment: 11.2-15.1%; sexual assault: 3.3-4.2%; and dating abuse: 14.3-19.9%).
• These reductions in the group participating in CBIM translated to significantly fewer incidents of sexual violence. In a 3-month period, athletes who received CBIM perpetrated 20 fewer incidents of sexual assault, 48 fewer incidents of sexual harassment, and 85 fewer incidents of dating violence per 1,000 athletes [8].

Researchers also conducted a cluster-randomized clinical trial among 973 middle school boys (ages 11 to 14) in Pennsylvania, United States, between 2015 and 2017. The 43 participating public and private schools were randomly assigned to either participate in CBIM or serve as the control group and receive standardized coaching. 

The study found that at program end:

• At program end, athletes in schools participating in CBIM were 1.5 times more likely to employ positive bystander behaviors, such as stepping in when peers were disrespectful or harming others, than those in schools that did not participate, one year after the program.

Among all participating athletes, one year following the program's end:

• Boys in CBIM schools were still 1.5 times as likely to engage in positive bystander behaviors and more likely to recognize harmful behavior than those in control schools.
• Those who had been in a dating relationship and received CBIM had lower odds of reporting relationship abuse, including sexual violence, compared with those in control schools.
• However, there were no differences in sexual harassment, or intention to intervene between the program and control schools [9].

Among athletes who received at least 8 of the 12 coaching sessions:

• Those who participated in CBIM were 2.5 times more likely to use positive bystander interventions and held more gender equitable attitudes.
• Participating boys also reported greater declines in perpetrating relationship abuse, online sexual violence, and sexual harassment (combined) compared with boys in control schools.

FUTURES worked with the Mumbai School Sports Association to adapt and implement CBIM among school cricket teams in Mumbai, India. Cricket is the most popular sport in South Asia and, as a primarily male sport, provides an opportunity to build boys’ attitudes and skills for healthy relationships.

As a first step, FUTURES interviewed coaches and conducted focus group discussions with athletes to better understand whether the program would be practical in the local context and accepted by the community, and what cultural adaptations might be needed. These sessions revealed hesitancy about whether coaches should have a role in addressing issues of gender-based violence, widespread acknowledgment of sexual harassment of girls and women, recognition of biases, and attitudes of acceptance toward it, particularly among coaches. 

As a result, the program was named ‘Parivartan’, meaning ‘transformation’ in Hindi and included a greater focus on training coaches to counter harmful attitudes. This included an intensive 3-day workshop and nine mentoring sessions over 4 months. During the workshops, the coaches practiced incorporating their own examples into the curriculum to make it more relatable for their athletes. Based on local feedback, the coaching cards remained largely unchanged from the U.S. high school implementation. 

Findings

The sports association invited 60 Mumbai high schools to participate in Parivartan, and 46 agreed. 168 boys aged 10-16 in 27 schools initially participated, and 19 served as a comparison group that would receive the intervention later.  A year after the program, the researcher found:

Lessons

• Partnering with a local sports network facilitated access to teams, coaches, and athletes, as well as to practice space and tournament organization. 
• Coaches in India spend 45 min to 1 hour in each coaching session, compared to 10-15 minutes in the United States.
• Due to changes in team participation, school attendance, and graduation, more than half of the athletes (54%) were lost to follow-up (e.g., not included in the final assessment).

Context

In 2020, with technical support from FUTURES, World Vision implemented CBIM in several countries as a part of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) Faith and Communities Initiative (FCI). Through FCI, Children of God Institute (COGRI) implemented CBIM through the Lea Toto (translated “to raise the child” in Swahili) program in informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya. 

The Lea Toto program provided HIV care, such as nutritional support and counseling, as well as treatment for people living with HIV. The overall goal of FCI was to increase diagnoses among people living with HIV, including boys and young men, and link them to lifesaving treatment and to increase child protection efforts. 

Lea Toto continued implementing CBIM until USAID funding ended in 2025. [11] Program implementation took place during COVID-19 school closures, providing an important structured intervention at a time when many children experienced a higher risk of violence.

Adaptation  

As a first step, COGRI trained 52 Muslim Imams and 348 Christian pastors and bishops to speak with members of their faith communities about HIV and gender-based violence, including identifying men and boys with HIV and the importance of preventing violence. Those faith leaders delivered messages to 90,000 community members of their communities. They also encouraged participation through WhatsApp groups and a radio program. 

COGRI recruited 95 adults to serve as CBIM coaches, delivering the sessions in their places of worship or in the community. More than 2,000 boys ages 9-14 participated in the program and signed a pledge to support girls and women and end gender-based violence. The coaches committed to continuing to hold card sessions within the community. 

The partners also utilized the CBIM coaching sessions to screen participants and people in the community for HIV, offering voluntary counseling and testing and direct linkage to treatment when someone was identified as living with HIV [11]. Given high interest from local leaders, community football clubs, and organizations, Lea Toto staff also recruited and trained 35 teachers to implement the program in schools once they reopened after COVID-19 closures.

Findings 

Learnings:

• The provision of a coach’s stipends and ‘field kit’ (uniforms and balls) encouraged participation.
• Coordinated weekly card use across teams and closely supervised coaches during the main implementation phase, ensuring fidelity to the content and quality of delivery.
• Religious leaders, children’s officers, and local traditional leaders supported program implementation, likely due to the intensive sensitization conducted by the trained faith leaders.
• Some teams, eager for gender equity, withdrew from the program because girls were not eligible. [11]

*Note, as the Lea Toto program has been closed, this adaptation summary is largely informed by the UN Compendium of Promising Practices of African Faith Community Interventions Against Paediatric and Adolescent HIV.

Context

Adolescent girls and young women in East and Southern Africa continue to experience disproportionately high rates of HIV infection compared with their male peers, driven by a range of structural factors including gender inequality, poverty, limited educational and economic opportunities, and gender-based violence, particularly sexual violence. 

In response, the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) launched the DREAMS initiative (Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored, and Safe), a comprehensive, multi-sectoral approach that combines biomedical, behavioral, and structural interventions to reduce HIV risk among adolescent girls and young women by addressing the underlying drivers of vulnerability. 

While DREAMS has made important investments in empowering girls and strengthening supportive family and community environments, comparatively fewer interventions have focused on transforming the attitudes and behaviors of adolescent boys and young men, who play a critical role in shaping relationship dynamics. This gap is particularly important given that nationally representative Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys (VACS) conducted across Eastern, Southern, and West Africa indicate that friends or classmates are responsible for 10–27% of girls' first experiences of sexual violence, while intimate partners account for 20–60% of first incidents. These findings underscore the importance of engaging boys and young men through evidence-based, gender-transformative approaches such as Coaching Boys Into Men (CBIM) to prevent violence before it occurs and promote healthier, more equitable relationships. 
 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization, and World Vision came together in 2017 to ‘pilot’ INSPIRE: Seven Strategies to End Violence Against Children. As part of the pilot, World Vision implemented a locally adapted Coaching Boys Into Men curriculum in an area receiving DREAMS interventions for adolescent girls and young women, where district officials remarked that boys had been ‘left behind’.

In 2021, FUTURES partnered with Soccer Without Borders Uganda (SWB) to deliver a master trainer course that included government officials. SWB now has 8 trained and certified staff and has reached 285 adolescent refugee boys. An internal baseline-to-endline assessment with participants showed gains in both coach delivery and boys' attitudes. 

By endline, 94% of boys reported that their coach had talked with them about stopping harmful or violent behavior toward girls, up 34 percentage points from 60% at baseline, and 100% reported their coach had discussed the importance of respecting women and girls, up from 79%. 

Boys were also markedly more likely to identify abusive behavior as abusive: recognition that pressuring a partner to skip school, work, sports, or clubs is abusive rose from 72% to 97%; using a partner's money without permission, from 60% to 90%; name-calling and insults, from 65% to 81%; and threatening to hit a partner, from 79% to 87% [12]. 

PACT Tanzania, in partnership with Futures Without Violence and Soccer Without Borders, and with funding from USAID, implemented CBIM in 10 councils of Tanzania that had been receiving DREAMS programming for girls from 2022-2025 [13]. Together with the Tanzania Commission for AIDS and the Tanzania Institute of Education, the partners adapted the curriculum to the needs of the communities [14]. This included ensuring all images used in training were representative of local communities, removing videos, and translating all materials into Swahili. The program reached more than 116,000 student-athletes. 

During an end-of-program event, three schools came together to discuss the impact of CBIM. Girls noted that although they had previously received programming (e.g., through DREAMS), it was not until the boys began participating in CBIM that things changed. They expressed a sense of renewed freedom, now comfortable raising their hands and participating more in class without fear of teasing. Teachers expressed similar observations. One boy stated that when a girlfriend confided in him that her father planned to marry her to an old man, he spoke with the father and convinced him not to do so. 

1. Fang, X., Ren, J., Kang, J., Ligiéro, D., Fry, D., et al. (2026). A systematic review of the global and regional estimates of the prevalence of sexual violence against children. Nature Human Behaviour, 10(6):1130-1142. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-026-02436-1 

2. Gewirtz-Meydan A., & Finkelhor D. (2020). Sexual Abuse and Assault in a Large National Sample of Children and Adolescents. Child Maltreatment, 25(2): 203-214. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-026-02436-1. 

3. Mathews, B., Finkelhor, D., Pacella, R., Scott, J.G., Higgins, D.J., et. al. (2024). Child sexual abuse by different classes and types of perpetrator: Prevalence and trends from an Australian national survey, Child Abuse & Neglect, 147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2023.106562 

4. Basile, K.C., Espelage, D.L., Rivers, I., McMahon, P.M., & Simon, T.R. (2009). The theoretical and empirical links between bullying behavior and male sexual violence perpetration. Aggression and Violent Behavior;14(5): 336-347. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2009.06.001 

5. McCauley, H., Jaime, M., Tancredi, D., Silverman, J.G., Decker, M.R. et al. (2014). Differences in Adolescent Relationship Abuse Perpetration and Gender-Inequitable Attitudes by Sport Among Male High School Athletes
Journal of Adolescent Health, 54, 742-744. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2014.01.001 

6. Miller E., Tancredi D.J., McCauley H.L., et al. (2012). “Coaching boys into men”: a cluster-randomized controlled trial of a dating violence prevention program. Journal of Adolescent Health. 51(5): 431-438. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2012.01.018

7. Miller E., Tancredi D.J., McCauley H.L., Decker, M.R.,  Virata, M.C.D. et al. (2013). One-year follow-up of a coach-delivered dating violence prevention program: a cluster randomized controlled trial. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 45(1):108-112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2013.03.007 

8. Jones, K.A., Tancredi, D.J., Abebe, K.Z., Paglisotti, T., & Miller, E.  et al. (2021). Cases of Sexual Assault Prevented in an Athletic Coach-Delivered Gender Violence Prevention Program. Prev Science, 22: 504–508. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-021-01210-1

9. Miller E., Jones K.A., Ripper L., Paglisotti T., Mulbah P., & Abebe K.Z. (2020). An Athletic Coach-Delivered Middle School Gender Violence Prevention Program: A Cluster Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Pediatrics, 174(3):241-249. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.5217

10. Miller, E., Madhumita, D. Tancredi, D.J., McCauley, H.L., Virata, M.C.D. et al. (2013). Evaluation of a Gender-Based Violence Prevention Program for Student Athletes in Mumbai, India. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 29(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260513505205 

11. UNAIDS. (2023). Compendium of Promising Practices of African Faith Community Interventions Against Paediatric and Adolescent HIV. 

12. Soccer Without Borders. CBIM Program Impact Snapshot. Uganda.

13. PACT Tanzania. (2023). ACHIEVE project final report.

14. Tarimo, A. (2024). It begins with me: what coaching boys into men taught me about leadership. https://www.pactworld.org/blog/it-begins-me-what-coaching-boys-men-taught-me-about-leadership

15. Jaime, M.C.D., McCauley, H.L., Tancredi, D.J., Decker, M.R., Siverman, J.G., et al. (2018). Implementing a Coach-Delivered Dating Violence Prevention Program with High School Athletes. Prevention Science, 19: 1113-1122.
 

Special thanks to Leila Milani Director, Global Policy and Programs, for co-developing this case study.

For more information on this case study, you can reach out to Leila at [email protected]