Youth Empowerment Solutions for Peaceful Communities

NCT ID: NCT00164593

Last Updated: 2012-04-05

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: PHASE1
• Total Enrollment: 1142 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2005-04-30
• Study Completion Date: 2009-08-31

Brief Summary

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.

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:

1. modify environmental conditions that contribute to youth violence;

2. promote social norms supportive of community participation and nonviolence;

3. increase perceptions of neighborhood safety among residents; and

4. reduce the incidence of youth violence perpetration and victimization.

Conditions

Violence; Juvenile Delinquency; Social Problems; Social Control, Informal

Study Design

• Allocation Method: NON_RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: SINGLE_GROUP
• Primary Study Purpose: PREVENTION
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Interventions

Youth Empowerment Solutions for Peaceful Communities

YES is a multi-faceted program that (1) engages 7th and 8th graders in a youth development program, (2) enhances neighborhood organizations' ability to include youth in their activities, and (3) connects the youth participants and adults in neighborhood organizations (e.g., crime watches, block groups, neighborhood associations) to carry out neighborhood improvement activities (e.g., community gardens, parks cleanup).

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

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.

• Minimum Eligible Age: 12 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 15 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Sponsors

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

FED

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

Marc Zimmerman, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

University of Michigan School of Public Health

Locations

University of Michigan School of Public Health

Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States

Countries

United States

Other Identifiers

U49CE000348

Identifier Type: NIH

Identifier Source: secondary_id

View Link

CDC-NCIPC-4530

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id