Youth Empowerment Solutions for Peaceful Communities

April 4, 2012 updated by: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

This project is an evaluation of an intervention to involve youth in creating community change for peace promotion and violence prevention. The intervention, Youth Empowerment Solutions for Peaceful Communities (YES), includes three components: youth empowerment activities, neighborhood organization development, and community development projects that involve youth and organizations working together.

Hypothesis 1: Efforts to engage youth in the community change process will enhance their attachment to their community, reduce their problem behaviors, and begin to change norms among their peers about community violence and interpersonal problem solving.

Hypothesis 2: Efforts to make community-based organizations more youth-friendly and engaging will assist them to be more effective in reaching their community enhancement goals and will expand youth involvement in their mission.

Hypothesis 3: Efforts to create more health-enhancing land use (e.g., beautification, community gardens, parks development) will improve social organization (e.g., social capital, social cohesion, and social support), and reduce the level of violent incidents and crime in the community.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Behavioral: Youth Empowerment Solutions for Peaceful Communities

Detailed Description

The program will focus on youth and neighborhood organizations in one middle-school attendance area. A nearby middle-school attendance area will serve as a comparison community. We will assess change in community norms, fear, social cohesion and social capital using an existing community survey of adults in the two neighborhoods. A similar survey will assess changes in youths' social norms, fears, perceptions of social cohesion and social capital, as well as their violent behavior and ethnic identity and pride. We will also compare the intervention and comparison neighborhoods on several community-level measures including police incident data, hospital injury reports, school suspension data, and ratings of neighborhood qualities (e.g., vacant lots, community gardens, social interaction).

The long-term goals of YES are to:

modify environmental conditions that contribute to youth violence;
promote social norms supportive of community participation and nonviolence;
increase perceptions of neighborhood safety among residents; and
reduce the incidence of youth violence perpetration and victimization.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

1142

Phase

Phase 1

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

United States
- Michigan
  - Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States, 48109
    - University of Michigan School of Public Health

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

12 years to 15 years (Child)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

7th and 8th graders in the intervention middle-school attendance area
Neighborhood organizations with at least 10 members serving the intervention middle-school attendance area

Exclusion Criteria:

Students who have been suspended or expelled during the intervention period
Neighborhood organizations that serve areas in both the intervention and comparison areas.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

Primary Purpose: Prevention
Allocation: Non-Randomized
Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Time Frame
Youth Violence Time Frame: 6 months	6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Investigators

Principal Investigator: Marc Zimmerman, PhD, University of Michigan School of Public Health

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

April 1, 2005

Primary Completion (Actual)

August 1, 2008

Study Completion (Actual)

August 1, 2009

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

September 12, 2005

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria