Youth Prevention Hub: Keeping Schools Safe Through Prevention

The New Star Family Center grant project will enhance and expand their youth violence prevention program with the middle school students in the Hawthorne School District. The purpose is to improve school climate and safety by building upon the agency's existing efforts to prevent and reduce incidents of school violence through the use of a trauma-informed, multi-disciplinary approach. The program focuses on three core components: educating youth about healthy relationships, resolving conflicts through mediation, and engaging parents and community members in the student's development. Program activities include: social emotional learning classroom presentations, school-wide prevention clubs, girl talk and guy talk clubs for at-risk youth, conflict resolution through mediations, and parenting cafes for parents' voices. The expected outcomes are to develop a comprehensive and integrated prevention program for the school district that will significantly reduce violence among students, while fostering positive relationships skills. This will be achieved through a collaborative effort involving students, parents, school officials, and the community, working together to identify risk factors and discover innovative strategies to reduce school violence.