Violence Begets: the Impact of Family, School and Neighborhood Violence on Youth

The OJJDP FY 09 Earmarks Programs further the Department's mission by providing grants, cooperative agreements, and other assistance authorized by the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, as amended, to organizations identified in the Explanatory Statement Regarding H.R. 1105 (Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009), 155 Cong. Rec. H1653 (daily ed. Feb. 23, 2009) (statement by Rep. Obey, Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations of the House).

The University of Delaware will use the 2009 Delaware School Survey data to develop a state-level model. This model will describe youth exposure to violence from different sources: family, school, and neighborhood and identify behavior patterns specific to each pathway and variations by gender and race/ethnicity to inform prevention and intervention programming. The goals are to analyze data from over 20,000 students at three grade levels in the Delaware public school system, as well as alternative schools and detention centers; to identify patterns associated with different sources of behavioral influence; and to disseminate that information through state agencies, the State Epidemiological Outcomes Workgroup, community coalitions, the professional community, and OJJDP. This information will be useful in the prevention and intervention planning, programming, and policy; and to use insights from analyses to refine survey questions to better illuminate these behavioral patterns. Analyses will focus on inter-personal violence, but also include substance use, gambling, property offenses, and truancy as secondary effects. Short term outcomes will consist of research products, breadth of the dissemination of findings, and use of findings in the development of prevention programs, policy and practice. Long term outcomes'beyond the scope of this one-year grant, will consist of reductions of youth violence and its consequences in Delaware. NCA/NCF