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5 Youth Violence Prevention Programs Every Community Should Have

This year, 2009, has started with multiple acts of youth violence. In February of 2009, 14 year old Brandon McInery killed Lawrence King at the Oxnard school. In the same month, police charged 11 year old Jordan Brown with shooting and killing his father's pregnant girl friend. A 9 year old Arizona boy pled guilty for shooting and killing his father and a family friend. The US continues to have a problem with violence that needs solutions. Law Enforcement, Courts, and the Criminal Justice system provide us with the essential laws, boundaries and protection.

In addition to that, we need to look at prevention and treatment. The majority of adult violence begins when the perpetrators are young children living in violent and/or neglectful homes. Despite the fact that most parents want to be good parents, they may not have the skills they need to cope with the stress of raising a family. These skills may not have developed because they grew up in homes where the wrong skills or few skills were taught. So we have generations of families that need help to learn the skills they need to raise and support a strong family. How do we fix that?

One proven prevention program is an early childhood program with parent involvement, such as Head Start or the Perry Point Project. Both have been around for a long time. It is important to have parent involvement in these programs so that the good information and child care practices are carried home for the use of parents, as well.

A second program is the home visiting program developed by Olds. In this program specially trained nurses, professionals, or para-professionals visit the homes of any new mother and take child development and child care information, support, modeling, age appropriate toys, and enrichment activities into the home. Healthy Families Programs in Maryland have demonstrated improved family health and knowledge of child care among participants. There is much research to support these home visiting programs.

There are many effective school based programs, also, but it is important to involve the families when possible. Six years of research on a school based mental health program in Maryland demonstrated improved mental health and reduced behavior problems and absenteeism of students who participated in the program when compared to those not participating in the program. School based mental health programs can be established by shifting paradigms, not necessarily by increasing the need for funds. By moving the mental health clinic from the community to the school through cooperative agreements, follow-up for services was also increased.

A juvenile justice program in Maryland is taking the approach of supporting strengths and building skills in the youth in care and the family simultaneously. The community and the institutional teams communicate regularly. The youth and the family are part of the treatment team, as well. All team members have goals that they agree to meet. This program is being used for one youth and family at this time. This youth and family have shown remarkable progress in all skill areas compared to 4 previous years of virtually no progress in reducing aggression of the youth in residential programs. With changes in the funding streams, this program could be expanded to treat more youth and families cost effectively by reducing residential stays and increasing the chances for success for the youth and family when they reunite. This program has elements that are similar to the very successful programs: Wrap Around, Functional Family Therapy, and Multi-Systemic Therapy.

Youth with behavior problems often lack the life skills needed to problem solve, manage behavior and emotions and remain on task. The Behavioral Objective Sequence (Braaten) measures the level of skills in 6 domains to determine the skills that the youth needs to be taught. Skills, according to Braaten need to be taught in the proper developmental sequence to be successful. Research has proven this to be a promising practice through the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

These are just 5 programs that can cost effectively prevent future violence. There are others, as well. This would seem to be a good alternative to continually increasing the number of prison beds and continuing the intergenerational suffering of those who need family support and services. Community services to these families are a fraction of the cost of incarceration. As we face the need for cost efficiency we need to look at not only what works, but what is cost effective when you assess across the life span and across agencies, such as community mental health vs residential treatment or incarceration of youth when they are adults.

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