A Guide to Addressing Teen Dating Violence and Sexual Assault in a School Setting (pdf)
"This guide details schools' responsibility to take a leadership role to prevent and respond to teen dating and sexual violence in schools and in the community. While the information is specific to California, much can be applied nationally."
Addressing the Intersection: Preventing Violence and Promoting Healthy Eating and Active Living (pdf)
"This document provides an explanation of the inter-relationship between violence and healthy eating and activity. The findings and recommendations offered in this paper can support practitioners and advocates in their work to prevent chronic disease in communities heavily impacted by violence. "
Addressing the Problem of Juvenile Bullying (pdf)
2-page Fact Sheet posted by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). The Fact Sheet describes bullying and its effects and provides information about the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, which is designed to reduce bullying among elementary, middle, and junior high school children.
An Evaluation of Safe Dates, an Adolescent Dating Violence Prevention Program (pdf)
This paper presents the results of a program focused on preventing violence among teenage dating partners. Decreased violence was perpetrated against a dating partner for those who participated in the program compared to a control group.
Benefits and Costs of Prevention and Early Intervention Programs for Youth
"This report describes findings and analysis regarding the cost-effectiveness of research-based prevention and early intervention programs for youth with a demonstrated ability to achieve 7 outcomes including reduction in child abuse and domestic violence."
Blueprints for Violence Prevention (pdf)
This report by the OJJDP describes 11 model programs and 21 promising programs that demonstrated evidence of effectiveness in delinquency, violence, and substance abuse prevention and reduction. The report describes the Blueprints programs, presents lessons learned about program implementation and provides recommendations for program designers, funders, and implementing agencies and organizations.
Creating Safe Environments: Violence Prevention Strategies and Programs
This document addresses the increased need for specific primary prevention programs of various types of violence. Gang-violence, Sexual Violence, Adolescent and Adult Intimate Partner Violence, as well as others are addressed. Specific examples of promising programs and practices currently in existence throughout the United States are detailed.
Detecting the Potential for Violence
Checklist for Detecting the Potential for Violence is also available.
Development and Evaluation of School-Based Violence Prevention Programs (pdf)
This article reviews practical issues in the development of school-based violence prevention programs.
Disproportionate Minority Contact (pdf)
"This publication provides an overview of OJJDP’s efforts to reduce disproportionate minority contact (DMC). Includes a description of OJJDP’s DMC Reduction Model which helps states determine whether disproportionality exists and, if it does, guides the establishment of multipronged intervention strategies to ensure equal treatment of all youth. The fact sheet also includes a summary of states’ DMC-reduction activities derived from compliance plans submitted in fiscal year 2008."
Diverting Children from a Life of Crime
Diverting Children from a Life of Crime: Measuring Costs and Benefits is a study from Rand, a public policy organization. The report looks at several prevention strategies to reduce youth involvement in the juvenile justice system. A few of the approaches studied are also utilized as child abuse prevention efforts.
Domestic Violence, Child Abuse, and Youth Violence: Strategies for Prevention and Early Intervention
Another Family Violence Prevention Fund publication that argues for a collaborative, community-based approach to combatting child abuse, domestic violence and youth violence.
Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature (pdf)
This literature review of sexual abuse and sexual misconduct responds to the mandate in Section 5414 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as amended, to conduct a study of sexual abuse in U.S. schools. To satisfy this mandate, the Department of Education contracted with Dr. Charol Shakeshaft of Hofstra University. Using the limited research that is available in this area, her literature review describes, among other topics: prevalence of educator sexual misconduct, offender characteristics, targets of educator sexual misconduct, and recommendations for prevention of educator sexual misconduct.
Electronic Media and Youth Violence: A CDC Issue Brief for Educators and Caregivers (pdf)
"The brief summarizes what is known about young people and electronic aggression, provides strategies for addressing the issue with young people, and discusses the implications for school staff, education policy makers, and parents and caregivers. "
Electronic Media, Violence, and Adolescents: An Emerging Public Health Problem (pdf)
"Attention is growing about the risk of adolescents to become victims of aggression perpetrated by peers with new technology. In September 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention convened a panel of experts in technology and youth aggression to examine this specific risk. This article presents the data and recommendations for future directions discussed at the meeting. The data supports the argument that electronic aggression is an emerging public health problem in need of additional research to support the development and evaluation of effective prevention programs."
Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies
"A Final Report of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force to the Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking of State Attorneys General of the United States. The scope of the Task Force's inquiry was to consider those technologies that industry and end users - including parents - can use to help keep minors safer on the Internet."
Evaluating G.R.E.A.T : A School-Based Gang Prevention Program (pdf)
Typical programs are directed at active gang members, and most target youths who are at risk for joining gangs. The G.R.E.A.T. program, in contrast, is presented to entire classrooms without attempting to predict which students are most likely to become involved with a gang. G.R.E.A.T. is aimed at middle school students and seeks to (1) reduce their involvement in gangs and delinquent behavior, (2) teach them consequences of gang involvement, and (3) help them develop positive relations with law enforcement. These three objectives are addressed through a nine hour curriculum taught in schools by uniformed law enforcement officers. Students are taught to set positive goals, resist negative pressures, resolve conflicts, and understand how gangs impact the quality of their lives. This report summarizes results of a five year study of the G.R.E.A.T. program. The study revealed that G.R.E.A.T. has modest positive effects on adolescents' attitudes and delinquency risk factors but no effects on their involvement in gangs and actual delinquent behaviors.
"This manual is designed to help violence prevention organizations hire an empowerment evaluator who will assist them in building their evaluation capacity through a learn-by-doing process of evaluating their own strategies. It is for state and local leaders and staff members of organizations, coalitions, government agencies, and/or partnerships working to prevent sexual violence, intimate partner violence, youth violence, suicide, and/or child maltreatment."
From the Courthouse to the Schoolhouse: Making a Successful Transition
A 16-page bulletin from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). This Bulletin describes effective approaches to reintegrating youth from juvenile justice system settings into the education mainstream and provides information about promising programs, practices, and resources.
Guide for Preventing and Responding to School Violence (pdf)
Outlines strategies and approaches for members of school communities to consider when creating safer learning environments. Offers guidance for school violence prevention and response in the following areas: prevention, threat assessment, planning and preparation, during a crisis, after a crisis, legal considerations, and working with the media. A list of Web sites pertaining to school safety and violence reduction is included.
Guiding Principles for Promising Female Programming
This guide describes practical policy, program development processes, and promising program models aimed at preventing and treating female juvenile delinquency. Also includes a profile of female juvenile offenders, the problems they present, their needs, and ways to address them.
Healing the Hate: A National Hate Crime Prevention Curriculum (pdf)
Originally designed to be used in classroom settings, these materials have also proven useful in a variety of other venues: working with youth who commit hate crimes, working with schools experiencing specific bias crime problems, in after-school programs, and in teacher training settings.
Homicides of Children and Youth
October 2001 Bulletin report. Provides a statistical portrait of juvenile homicide victimization by drawing on FBI and other data. As part of OJJDP's Crimes Against Children Series, the Bulletin offers detailed information about overall crime patterns and victim age groups. Specific types of juvenile homicide, including maltreatment homicides, abduction homicides, and school homicides, are discussed in further detail. The Bulletin also explores initiatives designed to prevent homicides of children and youth.
Juvenile Suicide in Confinement: A National Survey (pdf)
"This report provides the results of a survey on juvenile suicides occurring in confinement between 1995 and 1999. The study examined the demographic characteristics and social history of each victim, the characteristics of the incident, and the features of the juvenile facility in which the suicide took place. The report provides suggestions for addressing the problem and recommendations for prevention planning."
Juvenile Transfer Laws: An Effective Deterrent to Delinquency? (pdf)
"Provides an overview of research on the deterrent effects of transferring youth from juvenile to criminal courts, focusing on large-scale comprehensive OJJDP-funded studies on the effect of transfer laws on recidivism. The Bulletin reviews all of the extant research on the general and specific deterrent effects of transferring juveniles to adult criminal court."
"This compendium provides researchers and prevention specialists with a set of tools to assess violence-related beliefs, behaviors, and influences, as well as to evaluate programs to prevent youth violence. If you are new to the field of youth violence prevention and unfamiliar with available measures, you may find this compendium to be particularly useful."
Moving From Them to Us: Challenges in Reframing Violence Among Youth (pdf)
"This paper explores how youth and violence have been framed in the media, how the issue of race complicates depictions of youth and violence, and how public attitudes about government can inhibit public support for strategies to effectively prevent violence. This paper makes recommendations for the next steps in re-framing violence among youth."
Note: This document may take a few moments to load completely. This joint report by the National Center and the National Council on Crime and Delinquency analyzes existing, but largely unnoticed, research and data on the crime experiences of teenagers, ages 12 to 19, who make up 14 percent of the general population, but represent 25 percent of victims of violent crime. The report also outlines promising prevention and intervention strategies.
The report provides a review of existing research on teen victimization and its impact on youth in America as well as information on promising prevention and intervention techniques.
Preventing Adolescent Gang Involvement
12-page Bulletin is posted by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention . This Bulletin examines the youth gang problem in the larger context of juvenile violence. While there are no simple solutions to ending the youth gang problem, the Bulletin provides the reader with information to better understand its complexity, while dispelling common gang stereotypes. The Bulletin offers a solid foundation on which to build a comprehensive strategy to prevent youth gang involvement.
Preventing and Responding to Teen Dating Violence
This special collection emphasizes collaborative and multilevel approaches to the prevention of, and response to, teen dating violence. It draws on the work of many organizations and organizes the resources on TDV prevention and responses by different populations.
Preventing Delinquency Through Improved Child Protection Services (pdf)
2001 Bulletin examines a potentially powerful, yet often overlooked, delinquency prevention strategy: efforts to reduce the incidence of childhood maltreatment.
Preventing Student Sexual Harassment
December 2000 report posted on the Eric Clearinghouse on Urban Education.
"This article discusses the challenges that Hispanic immigrant families face and reviews the potential negative consequences of these challenges for Hispanic adolescents. The article outlines the theoretical background, goals, and intervention components of Familias Unidas, a substance-abuse-prevention program for poor immigrant Hispanic adolescents and their parents. Familias Unidas is an ecodevelopmentally based, parent-centered intervention delivered by way of parent participatory-learning groups, parent-adolescent discussion circles, and periodic home visits."
A Prevention Institute memo highlighting opportunities for improving safety and well-being in our nation’s urban areas while saving money and stimulating the economy.
Preventing Violence by Elementary School Children
November 1999 report posted on the Eric Clearinghouse on Urban Education.
Preventing Violence in Our Schools
Resource that gives advice and resources to parents and educators on preventing youth violence.
Preventing Youth Hate Crimes: A Manual for Schools and Communities, 1998
Promotes the discussion, planning, immediate action, and long-term responses of hate crime to assist schools and communities in confronting and eliminating harassment, intimidation, violence, and other hate-motivated behavior among young people.
Preventing Youth Violence in Schools: An Essay Collection (pdf)
A collection of articles edited by Wendy Schwartz. Included in the collection is the article "Gang Activity at School: Prevention Strategies" by Shirley Lal.
Prevention of Serious and Violent Juvenile Offending (pdf)
Prevention of Serious and Violent Juvenile Offending is a 15-page Bulletin by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). This Bulletin describes some of the developmental precursors to such offending and offers effective approaches to its prevention that are family, parent, and child focused. Examples of well-designed intervention programs are also provided.
Promoting gender equality to prevent violence against women (pdf)
"The World Health Organization has released a briefing highlighting the importance of the role gender plays in interpersonal violent situations, community- and school-based initiatives to empower women, the role of the media in altering gender norms, and the importance of engaging with men to combat violence against women. The briefing is one of an eight-part series on how to prevent interpersonal and self-directed violence."
Public Health Policy for Preventing Violence (pdf)
"In this paper we discuss the new vision for violence prevention embodied in the public health approach."
Race, Ethnicity, and Serious and Violent Juvenile Offending
June 2000. Discusses racial and ethnic differences in the rates of serious and violent offending among juveniles. Discribes various data sources and notes their relative strengths and weaknesses for purposes of identifying racial and ethnic patterns. Summarizes statistics on national trends in juvenile offending by race and ethnicity, discusses research findings on racial and ethnic differences among chronic offenders, and offers various explanations of the patterns observed. It also presents recommendations for understanding these patterns and discusses implications for prevention and intervention efforts.
"This study evaluated the short-term impact of a school-based violence prevention initiative on developmental processes thought to place children at risk for future aggression and violence and examined the influence of classrooms and neighborhood contexts on the effectiveness of the violence prevention initiative."
Safe Harbor: A School-Based Victim Assistance/Violence Prevention Program
The Safe Harbor program addresses violence prevention and victim assistance in school-based settings.
School Connectedness: Strategies for Increasing Protective Factors Among Youth (pdf)
"This longitudinal study found that family, school, and individual factors such as school connectedness, parent-family connectedness, high parental expectations for academic achievement, and the adolescent’s level of involvement in religious activities and perceived importance of religion and prayer were protective against a range of adverse behaviors. School connectedness was found to be the strongest protective factor for both boys and girls to decrease substance use, school absenteeism, early sexual initiation, violence, and risk of unintentional injury."
School Violence Prevention: Strategies to Keep Schools Safe
Policy Study No. 234, January 1998. Posted by the Reason Foundation. Discusses the many faces of violence and the different methods of violence prevention.
School Violence: Prevalence, Fears, and Prevention
2001 paper. Describes the options that are currently available for schools. An analysis of the key components of various approaches in terms of their potential positive and negative effects can assist in the selection of policies, programs, and procedures while we wait for evaluations to be conducted.
Second Chances: Giving Kids a Chance To Make a Better Choice (pdf)
28-page Bulletin posted by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). Drawing on a recently published book, "Second Chances 100 Years of the Children's Court: Giving Kids a Chance To Make a Better Choice," the Bulletin profiles successful "graduates" of the juvenile justice system.
Social and Economic Costs of Violence: Workshop Summary
This document is the summary of a workshop held by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Forum on Global Violence Prevention on the social and economic costs of violence. The workshop was designed to examine violence prevention approaches from multiple perspectives and at multiple levels of society. In particular, the workshop was focused on exploring the successes and challenges in presented interventions. Speakers were invited to share the progress and outcomes of their work and to engage in dialogue exploring gaps and opportunities in the field.
Something is Wrong: Exploring the Roots of Youth Violence (pdf)
"The Chicago Freedom School, Project NIA and Teachers for Social Justice have partnered along with other volunteers to develop this curriculum guide in order to contribute to the ongoing efforts by young people and their adult allies to analyze the root causes of youth violence and to create local solutions."
Technology and Youth: Protecting your Child from Electronic Aggression Tip Sheet (pdf)
"This tipsheet provides an overview of electronic aggression, any type of harassment or bullying that occurs through e-mail, a chat room, instant messaging, a website (including blogs), or text messaging. It provides parents and caregivers with strategies for protecting children from this type of violence. "
Teen Dating Violence: A Review of Risk Factors and Prevention Efforts (pdf)
This article provides a critical review of the dating violence literature with respect to potential risk factors for both perpetrators and victims and examines the empirical research regarding the effectiveness of prevention and intervention programs targeting teen dating violence. The document also provides recommendations for future research and potential policy implications.
Teen Dating Violence: Information and Resources (pdf)
This is an information packet developed by the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence (NRCDV) as an introduction to the dynamics, prevalence and consequences of teen dating violence. The packet explores issues specific to teen dating violence, examines current provision of support services for teens and presents information about a variety of promising prevention /intervention strategies. The intent of packet contents is to examine some of the key dating violence issues currently facing teens and their advocates.
The Comprehensive Strategy: Lessons Learned From the Pilot Sites
This is a 12-page Bulletin from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). Derived from extensive research, the OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy was developed to assist States and local communities in preventing at-risk youth from becoming serious, violent, and chronic juvenile offenders and in crafting an appropriate response to those who do. This Bulletin offers an overview of the Comprehensive Strategy, describes its implementation in the three pilot sites, and discusses the lessons learned in that process.
"This report provides a summary of findings from a review of evidence concerning the effectiveness of universal school-based violence prevention programs."
The Girls Study Group - Charting the Way to Delinquency Prevention for Girls (pdf)
"The Girls Study Group, convened by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), conducted a study to determine the cause of delinquency and increased arrests among female adolescents, factors that influence delinquency, and effective programs in preventing girls’ delinquency."
Third Milestones of a Global Campaign for Violence Prevention Report 2007: Scaling Up
"Reviews progress that has been made in violence prevention since October 2002 and sets out what the World Health Organization and its partners can do over the next 5 years to expand programming and to demonstrate the impact of violence prevention."
This booklet, designed by the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health, helps young adults understand the dynamics of healthy relationships; the signs of controlling relationships; the strategies for dealing with dating violence; and the resources available to end the cycle of violence.
U.N. Report of the independent expert for the United Nations study on violence against children (pdf)
"This report provides a global picture of violence against children and proposes recommendations to prevent and respond to this issue. It provides information on the incidence of various types of violence against children within the family, schools, alternative care institutions and detention facilities, places where children work and communities. "
Increasing emphasis has been placed on the importance of evidence-informed prevention strategies and evidence-based decision making. In this guidance document, the authors aim to explain the purpose and meaning of the Continuum of Evidence of Effectiveness, a tool that was developed to facilitate a common understanding of what the Best Available Research Evidence means in the field of violence prevention. This Continuum also serves to provide common language for researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers in discussing evidence-based decision making.
Understanding School Violence Fact Sheet 2008 (pdf)
An updated fact sheet compiled by the CDC explaining what school violence is, risk factors, health effects, prevention strategies, and much more.
Understanding Youth Violence Factsheet (pdf)
This fact sheet is a quick look at statistics and issue areas concerning youth violence in the United States. Headings include, "Why is youth violence a public health problem", and "Who is at risk for youth violence".
UNITY RoadMap: A Framework for Effectiveness and Sustainability
"The UNITY RoadMap is a resource for cities to prevent violence before it occurs by mapping out solutions to effectively and sustainably prevent violence. The UNITY RoadMap helps cities understand the current status of their efforts, describes the core elements necessary to prevent violence before it occurs, and provides information, resources, and examples to support cities in planning, implementation, and evaluation."
Victimization and Juvenile Offending (pdf)
In this article the authors present statistics on adolescent victimization, its effects, and the connection trauma has with development of aggressive behaviors. The authors conclude with recommendations in reducing the cycle of victimization and subsequent violence.
Working with Children Towards a Healthy & Non-Violent Future
"This Special Collection provides a unique perspective on working with children (younger than 13 years of age), focusing on theories and strategies for raising respectful, non-violent people. Resources included here discuss child development and how to utilize this knowledge when implementing primary prevention strategies that foster healthy attitudes and behaviors"
Working with Young Men Who Batter: Current Strategies and New Directions
This article offers an overview of the recent juvenile batterer intervention programs. It identifies risk factors for teen dating violence perpetration as described by the literature and considers the utility of these findings, describes efforts to prevent re-offenses by juvenile perpetrators of domestic violence, discusses several shortcomings inherent in post-crisis intervention, and outlines current challenges within the field.
World Report on Violence against Children
"This book addresses all violence against children within the family, schools, alternative care institutions and detention facilities, places where children work and communities. It lists the relevant international and national legal instruments and standards. It also describes the nature and impact of all forms of violence, indicating possible risk and causal factors. Finally, and most important, based on existing evidence and concrete examples, it provides detailed recommendation on measures to be taken to enhance the protection of children from violence."
Younger Women at Great Risk of Intimate Partner Violence
Summary of the new report, Intimate Partner Violence and Age of Victim, released by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).
Youth Activism: Engaging Teens in the Sexual Violence Prevention Movement (pdf)
"This bulletin discusses how to engage youth as valued partners in sexual violence prevention work."
The Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence has published over 50 factsheets related to youth violence and aggression.