Five different programs in the Butte County area have joined together to form the Community Collaborative for Youth (CCY). Although these projects have different approaches and agendas, all of them have the common goal of addressing violence, alienation, and disenfranchisement among the youths in Butte County and adjacent counties. Some of the programs focus on specific ethnic or cultural groups, others are more broad based. Each project seeks to recognize and use the cultural strengths and resources of the particular group it is working with. As well as performing administrative functions, the collaborative serves as a meeting ground for the project directors. It also implements strategies for uniting the youths across cultural lines.
The goals of the collaborative are:
Statement of Need
The school shootings across the country have served to illuminate the problem of violence under age 18 in American. The Criminal Justice Report for 1998 indicates that slightly more than 14% of high school seniors surveyed in 1998 reported that they had hurt someone badly enough to need bandages or a doctor at least once in the past 12 months. In another survey of students from 6th through 12th grade, 5% reported having threatened another student with a gun, knife, or club while in school (Criminal Justice Statistics, 1998). In 1997, approximately 12% of all murders in the United States involved at least one juvenile offender (Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1999 National Report). These are just a few of the statistics that indicate a great need for us to find methods to prevent violence among youths.
Description of the Intervention
When I initially became involved with CCY, I was hoping to be able to work directly with youths through one of the affiliate programs of CCY. In preparation for this, my research focused on resiliency and youth. I was seeking to understand what resiliency was and how to promote it. In my immersion, I interviewed people that were working directly with youths and/or were knowledgeable about resilience. However, as the year progressed CCY began to focus more attention on finding funding for it's programs. We began the process of seeking grant money from the California Endowment, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the National Academic Centers of Excellence on Youth Violence Prevention (NCIPC). The grant from the CDC was brought to our attention by Professor Celeste Jones in the Social Work Department at Chico State. Professor Jones has joined with the Collaborative in seeking this grant for the purpose of research, implementation and evaluation of the programs of CCY.
My portion of the work for CCY has focused on researching youth violence prevention and interventions. I met weekly with Professor Jones to discuss the focus and results of my research. The first thing that I had to find were scales for us to do pre and post testing on the youths involved in the program so that we would be able to evaluate the effectiveness of our interventions. I used the Miriam Library to access the journal articles that addressed the topics I was researching. I found that I had to be inventive in listing the research topics I was looking for, for instance, using not only violence but aggression or using teenagers, youths, or juveniles in performing a search through the Research Station.
My most successful source of information was the Internet, where I found a very comprehensive resource of scales: Measuring Violence-Related Attitudes, Beliefs, and Behaviours Among Youth: A Compendium of Assessment Tools produced by the CDC.
The departments of the federal government have some outstanding web pages that I used for my research: The U.S. Dept. of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Department of Education, and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. These organizations were very willing to supply written reports free of charge and were invaluable to me.
At the end of my research I prepared a review of the literature, which will be incorporated in our grant proposal. Our grant proposal will include: specific aims, background and significance, preliminary studies/progress report, research design and methods, human subjects, vertebrate animals, literature cited, consortium/contractual arrangements and consultants.
Evaluation of the Intervention
The CCY is an excellent example of a grassroots movement to improve the quality of life for a disadvantaged segment of society. The members of CCY have worked long hours at low pay to ensure that the collaborative becomes firmly established. The dedication of the people that I have met in this community project is impressive. I have had the opportunity to learn about making policy, cooperation and collaboration among a group of diverse people and programs to achieve a mutual goal, and grant writing procedures. So, although I have not been able to interact with youth the way I hoped to this project was beneficial to me and I hope to the people in this area.
Reflections on the Project
References
Batsche, G. & Howard, M. (1994). Bullies and their victims: understanding a pervasive problem in the schools. School Psychological Review, 23(6), 165-174.
California Department of Justice, Division of Criminal Justice Information Services, Crime and Delinquency in California, 1998 (California, 1998).
Coie, J. & Dodge, K. (1991). The role of aggression in peer relations: an analysis of aggressive episodes in boys play groups. Child Development, 62(4), 812-827.
Dahlberg, L.; Toal, S.; & Behrens, C. Measuring violence-related attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors among youths: a compendium of assessment tools. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 1998.
Fitzpatrick, K. (1999). Violent victimization among America’s school children. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 14(10)m 1055-1068.
Meyer, A. & Farrell, A. (1998). Social skills training to promote resilience in urban sixth-grad students: one product of an action research strategy to prevent youth violence in high-risk environments. Education & Treatment of Children, 21(4), 461-479.
Miller-Johnson, S.; Coie, J.; MAumary-Gremaud.; Lochman, J.; & Terry, R. (1999). Relationship between childhood peer rejection and aggression and adolescent delinquency severity and type among African American youth. Journal of Emotional & Behavioral Disorders, 7(3), 137-147.
U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Report to Congress on Juvenile Violence Research, 1999 Washington D.C.: United States Department of Justice, July 1999.
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