Youth Empowerment Solutions for Peaceful Communities

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.

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Key information

Conditions

Violence Juvenile Delinquency Social Control, Informal Social Problems

Age range

12 year–15 year

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Phase 1

Primary location

University of Michigan School of Public Health

Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48109, United States

About this study

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.

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: No

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

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.

Treatment and study plan

Youth Empowerment Solutions for Peaceful Communities

Behavioral

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).

Primary outcomes

Youth Violence

Time frame: 6 months

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Fed

Registry information

Important dates

Study start: 2005
Primary completion: 2008
Study completion: 2009
First posted: Sep 14, 2005
Registry last updated: Apr 5, 2012

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

Published trials that share one or more normalized conditions with this study.

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