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| Title: | Evaluating the Impact of Conflict Resolution on Urban Children’s Violence-Related Attitudes and Behaviors in New Haven, Connecticut, through a Community Academic Partnership |
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| Status: | Completed |
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| Topic: | School-based;Violence Prevention |
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| Funding Source: | Community Mediation/CARE and the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) |
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| Funding Period: | 2007-2008 |
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| Study Design: | Quasi-Experimental Design (before & after study) |
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| Purpose: | To examine the impact of a violence prevention program utilizing peer mediation training on economically disadvantaged urban youth from the New Haven Public Schools as well as their perceptions of self-efficacy, feelings of hopelessness and hostility, and perceptions of violence via validated questionnaires. The primary intent was to empower participating youth, leading to increased self-esteem and a reduction of anti-social behaviors. |
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| Further Study Details: | A community-academic partnership between Community Mediation Inc., New Haven Public Schools, Yale School of Public Health, and Yale-Griffin PRC was formed to evaluate a school-based violence prevention program taught in the New Haven Public Schools. During the 2007–08 school year, 191 fourth and fifth grade students in 3 schools took part in 5 workshops led during the school day by experienced mediators. Of the 191 students, 165 (84%) completed pre- and post-intervention questionnaires. The team used validated questionnaires to examine the intervention’s impact on the likelihood of violence, conflict self-efficacy, hopelessness, and hostility (potential causes of violent behavior) among participants. |
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| Findings: | The intervention had little positive impact on participants’ violence-related attitudes and behavior. On the other hand, the students’ schools independently predicted hostility and conflict self-efficacy scores; this is consistent with other research showing that a school’s organizational structure, climate, size and cohesion have a major effect on violence-related behaviors In addition, a perception that the neighborhood police could be trusted correlated with a lower likelihood of violence; and the presence of parents when children arrive home from school tended to correlate with a reduced sense of hopelessness. This sample of students from 3 schools is not necessarily representative of all elementary schools in the district. The impact of the intervention might be improved by increasing its duration, adding more components, and specifically targeting high-risk students. |
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| Eligibility: | Fourth and fifth grade students enrolled in 3 selected schools in the New Haven Public Schools |
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