Lead Investigator/Co-Investigators: Kevin W. Allison, Ph.D., Torey Edmonds, Karen Wilson

Background: Adaptive social connections among neighbors have been identified as important community-level resources associated with youth adaptation. Both conceptual and empirical work examining community factors linked to youth violence and youth violence prevention underline the important role of the community, neighborhood resources, social connections among community residents, and shared values among neighbors. In our current work, we focus on social capital at the community level as a central factor that works to reduce community-level risk of youth violence.

Importance: Although prevention science has shown progress in the identification of effective and promising youth violence prevention programs at the individual, family or school level, community level interventions have been limited, and the few that have been implemented or show effectiveness have involved strong structural and criminal justice interventions. Among other promising community-level interventions, few community-level have been replicated. In addition, specific contextual factors including historical events, current leadership, and proximal resources may shape the feasibility of replicating many community-level interventions.

Goals and objectives: The goal of the current proposal is to evaluate the effectiveness of a community-based prevention process targeting specific increases in community-level social capital relevant to the reduction of youth violence. The objectives of this research are to: 1.) Refine a community– informed youth development and violence prevention intervention; 2.) Evaluate the effectiveness of the community intervention delivered through ‘Plain Talk/Walker-Talker’ strategies (i.e., a community resident delivery model) and community meetings by comparing multiple indicators of youth violence in communities randomly assigned to intervention and control conditions; and, 3.) Evaluate the effectiveness of the community intervention on mediators targeted by the intervention.

Setting and context: The impact of the community intervention will be evaluated in a neighborhood that have experienced a youth homicide or pediatric gunshot or stabbing transport in the past year. The neighborhoods will include 2 in the City of Richmond (1 randomized to each condition) .
Method and measures: The impact of the pilot community intervention will be evaluated in an experimental design in which 2 high risk neighborhoods will be selected and randomly assigned to either an intervention (N=1) or control (N=1) condition. Twenty households with a youth between 10 and 15 years old per neighborhood will be randomly sampled to examine theoretically based mediators (e.g., problem behavior, sense of safety, and collective efficacy) at 2 waves: Year I baseline, and Year 2 post-test.

Study participants and recruitment strategies: Data on relevant outcomes will be obtained from multiple sources (e.g., youth, parents, police and ambulance records). Measurement will take place on two levels: neighborhood and family. 2 neighborhoods and 40 families (20 families within each neighborhood) with a student aged 10 to 15 attending a city public middle school targeted for measurement.