The goal of this research study is to implement and evaluate a comprehensive community-level approach, Healthy Communities for Youth, that includes both a selective hospital-based prevention strategy, Emerging Leaders, and universal prevention strategies that increase Positive Youth Development opportunities through participatory action research, stakeholder education, community mobilization, and an overall focus on increasing community capacity for prevention. Key project aims are to evaluate the impact of Healthy Communities for Youth on community rates of youth violence using surveillance data and evaluate the impact of each violence prevention strategy on proximal outcomes including their impact on risk factors and protective processes related to multiple forms of youth violence.
This project focuses on three communities in Richmond selected based on US Census Bureau block groups and their high rates of youth violence and concentrated poverty. The community-level effects of implementing the comprehensive community-level approach will be evaluated using a multiple baseline design. The three communities were randomly assigned such that the intervention would begin in one community starting in the fourth quarter of Year 1, a second community in the fourth quarter of Year 2, and the third community will represent a no-intervention control community receiving training and technical assistance at the end of the project. Analyses will be conducted on community-level surveillance data on violence-related variables to determine if the introduction of the community-level intervention within each community is associated with subsequent changes in outcome measures.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
OTHER
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
3,390
The SEED Method is an evidence-based Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach that engages youth and adult stakeholders in collective decision-making and action in supporting PYD opportunities in their communities.
Youth Voices is a developmentally appropriate and culturally responsive PAR approach designed for African American adolescents. The curriculum relies on frameworks including sociopolitical development (e.g., civic engagement and social justice), racial socialization, and racial identity development. Youth Voices will be implemented in high schools serving the intervention communities.
Emerging Leaders is a violence prevention strategy that provides evidence-based intervention and resources for high-risk youth and their families in the youth's home and community. Emerging Leaders consists of four core components to prevent violence: (1) brief hospital-based violence intervention, (2) 3-months of community case management, (3) an in-home firearm safety counseling program, and (4) an 8-week youth positive development workshop series.
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, Virginia, United States
Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ)
23 item measures of aggression and antisocial behavior
Time frame: Baseline and 6 months after baseline
Beliefs About Aggression and Alternatives (BAA)
12 item measures that uses a 4-point Likert scale to assess agreement and disagreement on items involving the use of aggression
Time frame: Baseline and 6 months after baseline
Firearm Aggression Questionnaire (FAQ)
Self-report assessments of violence involving firearms
Time frame: Baseline and 6 months after baseline
Gun Violence Questionnaire (GVQ)
Self-report assessments of violence involving firearms
Time frame: Baseline and 6 months after baseline
Peer Pressure for Fighting (PPF)
A questionnaire about peer pressure for fighting is a subscale derived from the Problem Behavior Frequency Scales-Adolescent Report
Time frame: Baseline and 6 months after baseline
Youth Dating Violence Questionnaire (YDVQ)
21 item measure that assesses youth dating violence perpetration
Time frame: Baseline and 6 months after baseline
Engagement in Community Advocacy
Youth report on the frequency with which they have engaged in these specified community advocacy activities.
Time frame: Baseline and 17 weeks later
Orientation to Community Advocacy
Youth report on how much they agree with statements that indicate and orientation of working cooperatively with others for community advocacy and change.
Time frame: Baseline and 17 weeks later
Emotional Motivation to Engage in Community Advocacy
Youth report on how much they agree with statements about feeling anger in the face of thinking about and learning about social injustice and the extent to which they engage in specific emotion regulation strategies when feeling this anger.
Time frame: Baseline and 17 weeks later
Civic Engagement
Youth report on how important it is to have certain social responsibility and political beliefs, the frequency with which they volunteer, their voting intentions in the future, and their news consumption.
Time frame: Baseline and 17 weeks later
Critical Consciousness
Youth report on how much they agree with statements that reflect the awareness, perception, and reflection on societal experiences of inequality.
Time frame: Baseline and 17 weeks later
Developmental Assets Profile (DAP)
58 item measure that was developed for youth aged 11-18 to assess the strengths and qualities that are believed to promote resilience and positive development.
Time frame: Baseline and 6 months after baseline
Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC)
189 item survey that assesses hyperactivity, aggression, conduct problems, and executive function in youth. It also assesses anxiety, depression, attention and learning problems, as well as the lack of certain essential skills
Time frame: Baseline and 6 months after baseline
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES)
It is a 10-item measure intended to assess 10 types of childhood adversity in three different areas of abuse, including emotional and physical abuse, physical neglect, and abuse associated with living in a dysfunctional household. An ACE Score of 0 suggest that the person reported no exposure to childhood trauma. An ACE Score of 10 suggests that the person reported exposure to childhood trauma. The higher the ACE Score, the greater the likelihood that a person will develop one or more of the following health problems: ischemic heart disease, cancer, chronic bronchitis or emphysema, hepatitis or jaundice skeletal fractures, diabetes, smoking, sexually transmitted diseases , depression, etc.Measure administered to determine emotional, physical, and sexual abuse; emotional and physical neglect; and growing up with domestic violence, parental marital discord, substance abuse, mental illness, and incarceration of a household member experienced during the first 18 years of life
Time frame: Baseline and 6 months after baseline
Research skills & Orientation Toward Research
Youth report on the extent to which they know how to use certain research skills and whether they believe that research skills can be useful for community change.
Time frame: Baseline and 17 weeks after baseline
Leadership Skills
Youth report on the extent to which they believe they possess certain leadership skills.
Time frame: Baseline and 17 weeks after baseline
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Orientation Toward Leadership
Youth report on how much they agree that they have the capacity and responsibility to engage in leadership behaviors.
Time frame: Baseline and 17 weeks after baseline
Ethnic-Racial Identity
Youth report on their own views about being a member of their ethnic-racial group, how central their ethnic-racial group membership is to their identity, and how they think others view people of their ethnic-racial group.
Time frame: Baseline and 17 weeks after baseline
Social and Emotional Skills
Youth report on how easy or difficult it is for them to engage in certain positive social and emotional behaviors.
Time frame: Baseline and 17 weeks after baseline
Involvement in Youth Oriented Activities
Youth report their participation and frequency of participation in 25 types of youth-oriented activities at school or in the community.
Time frame: Baseline and 17 weeks after baseline
Satisfaction & Experiences in the Youth Voices Program
Youth report their overall satisfaction, perception, and important experiences from participating in the Youth Voices program and working together in a group.
Time frame: Baseline and 17 weeks after baseline