Partnering to Effectively Reduce the Impact of Violence in Kalamazoo

The Safe Start Promising Approaches Project will develop and support practice enhancements and innovations to prevent and reduce the impact of children's exposure to violence in their homes and communities. The project will help communities implement collaborative and evidence-based practices across the services continuum for children and their families. Exposure to violence includes being a victim of violence or a witness to violence, and encompasses abuse, neglect or child maltreatment, domestic violence, and community violence.
This program is authorized by Sections 261 and 262 of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, as amended (42 USC 5665-5666). The 10 pilot sites will test various evidence-based enhancements and practice innovations such as AF-CBT, TF-CBT, Strengthening Families Program, Coping Resources and other interventions in community-based settings such as DV shelters, libraries, Head Start, community mental health clinics and afterschool clubs. NCA/NCF

OJJDP has a specific mission to develop and disseminate knowledge about what works to prevent juvenile delinquency and violence and improve the effectiveness of the juvenile justice system. The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, 42 U.S.C. § 5601 et seq authorizes the Administrator of OJJDP to conduct research or evaluations and undertake statistical analyses on a wide range of juvenile justice matters. OJJDP also provides funding to states and localities to carry out research, evaluation, and statistical analyses.

The Western Michigan University's Southwest Michigan Children's Trauma Assessment (CTAC) is proposing to implement an intervention that is both evidence-informed, evidence-based, and a promising practice. Psychological First Aid (PFA)is an evidence informed supportive intervention originally purposed for disaster trauma but adapted for use in community violence by the Chicago Department of Public Health. The Core Elements of Trauma Intervention identify five key components for evidence-based trauma interventions for children including affect regulation skill building, relational engagement, and narrative construction. CTAC will also use an evidence informed modular approach, skills for psychological recovery (SPR), another trauma based intervention originally designed for disaster victims. SPR focuses on two areas; (1) managing reactions; and (2) problem solving. Trauma Affect Regulation: Guide for Education and Therapy (TARGET) will be used in children groups. TARGET is a strength-based, present centered, biopsychosocial approach to teaching trauma and extreme stress survivors self-regulation skills. Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy (TF-CBT) TF-CBT is an evidence based intervention approach shown to help children, adolescents and their caregivers overcome trauma related difficulties. It is designed to reduce negative emotional and behavioral responses following traumatic events. The intervention based on learning and cognitive theories addresses distorted beliefs and attributions related to the abuse and provides a supportive environment in which children are encouraged to share their traumatic experience

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This program furthers the Department's mission by providing grants and cooperative agreements for research and evaluation activities to organizations that OJJDP designates.

The Safe Start Promising Approaches project supports the development and study of the practice enhancements and innovations to prevent and reduce the impact of children's exposure to violence in their homes and communities. The eight continuation projects serve as the practice pilots for a multi-site national evaluation using experimental and quasi-experimental research design to test the effectiveness of new approaches to improve outcomes for children exposed to violence in real world community-based settings. The national evaluation is being conducted by RAND and supported through OJJDP research funding. The project helps communities implement collaborative and evidence-based practices across the service continuum.

Western Michigan University's Southwest Michigan Children's Trauma Assessment Center (CTAC) received a grant through the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) in October of 2010. This grant was awarded through Safe Start Promising Approaches Initiative through the funding of Project Partnering to'Effectively Reduce the Impact of Violence in Kalamazoo (PERK).
The purpose of the study is to provide a multi-pronged Practice Innovation Intervention approach designed to identify children exposed to violence in the city of Kalamazoo and then reduce the impact of that violence. Currently, there are no system protocols within the public and/or private sectors in Kalamazoo to identify children exposed to violence. The research goals of Project PERK are 1) to measure the prevalence of children who have been exposed to violence, 2) to measure the reduction in behavioral and emotional impact of children's exposure to violence and 3) to increase number of partner agencies offering effective programs and approaches to engage and intervene with families of children exposed to violence. Project PERK will utilize an ecological approach that provides a continuum of neighborhood based interventions designed to address the impact of exposure to violence (Aisenberg & Ell, 2005). The delivery of the parenting information will be presented through a Psychological First Aid (Brymer, et al., 2006) format.
Parents are provided parenting information for 5 sessions, 120 minutes, weekly for 5 weeks and children are provided information for 4 sessions, 45 minutes, weekly for 4 week. Child participant requiring additional therapeutic interventions will be referred to local therapists trained in Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) and provided up to 16 sessions weekly for 50 minutes each (Cohen, Mannarino & Deblinger, 2006).
Project PERK is a partnership between Western Michigan University's Southwest Michigan Children's Trauma Assessment Center (CTAC) and two established neighborhood centers, New Genesis and Boys and Girls Club of Kalamazoo. These agencies are located in neighborhoods where violence and crime are prevalent. Project PERK will focus on children between the ages of 8-16 years due to vulnerability of this age group and recognition that middle age school children are particularly vulnerable to gang initiation and activity. The Kalamazoo research study, designed by RAND, utilizes a quasi-experimental design with subjects being assigned to treatment and comparison groups according to neighborhood they reside and where services are received. Treatment effects will be analyzed using repeated measures collected at baseline and at six month intervals for a one year period.
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