Review of the Efficacy of Evidence-based Programs at Minimizing the Effects of Community Based Violence
Review of the Efficacy of Evidence-based Programs at Minimizing the Effects of Community Based Violence

Author: Patricia Russo

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 42

ISBN-13:

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Exposure to trauma, including chronic community violence, during adolescence appears to impact youth's development and adaptive functioning in several domains. Community violence exposure is associated with both internalizing and externalizing difficulties as well attentional impairment, declines in academic achievement, impairment in typical development, and increased substance use. Consequently, treatment implications for adolescents exposed to community violence is a heightened area of concern and a topic that needs to be further investigated. This review begins by summarizing the risk and protective factors that may influence the impact of community violence exposure. The overall aim is to conduct a systematic review of evidence-based programs that have been implemented in the community to determine what specific aspects of these programs have shown to be effective, or ineffective, in treating externalizing and internalizing behaviors exhibited by adolescents exposed to community violence. This literature review closely examined eight articles (six programs) that assessed the impact of trauma, particularly community violence, on psychological well-being. Only articles that and females between the ages of 10 and 17 were reviewed. In addition, the article had to include at least one of the core characteristics of violence exposure: direct victimization or witnessing violence in the community as a risk factor for adolescent well-being. The programs were examined through study sample and design, type of intervention, and key findings on the effects of treatment on mental health symptoms following experience of community violence. All programs found significant improvements in symptoms related to posttraumatic stress, as each program was aimed at treating adolescents who have experienced a form of trauma. However, the specific types of posttraumatic stress symptoms that improved varied by programs. Programs that resulted in significant decreases in depression appeared to place a large emphasis on the cognitive and affect regulation components of therapy. Decreases in anxiety was associated with programs that placed a greater emphasis on implementing multiple ecological levels of intervention, including parent-child attunement and attachment. Results of the present review indicate that taking on a comprehensive and multi-tiered approach to reducing risk factors and enhancing protective factors appears, notably by targeting interventions to focus on the individual and family levels, helps address the generational impact of community violence.

The Role of Social Skills in Protecting Against the Impact of Family and Community Violence on Youth Psychopathology
The Role of Social Skills in Protecting Against the Impact of Family and Community Violence on Youth Psychopathology

Author: Emily Christine Hockenberry

Publisher:

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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Children and adolescents are exposed to family and community violence at high rates, and poly victimization is common. Further study is needed to assess the unique and additive effects of witnessing or directly experiencing violence in multiple contexts on psychopathology in urban youth of color. Additionally, analyzing the role of protective factors, such as social skills, in moderating the relation between violence exposure and psychopathology may aid in identifying unique and shared pathways by which different forms of interpersonal violence may impact mental health outcomes. This study sought to examine whether social skills (cooperation and assertion) moderated the relation between exposure to family and community violence and internalizing and externalizing symptoms in a sample of 116 youth (ages 5-17) and their caregivers. A community sample was recruited for a study evaluating the effectiveness of a trauma-specific cognitive behavioral therapy for family violence for Black and Latino families. Participants completed self-report and parent-report questionnaires assessing demographic information, history of violence exposure, social skills, and internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that social skills moderated the effects of violence exposure on psychopathology such that youth with a history of exposure to community violence and high assertion were more likely to endorse higher levels of externalizing symptoms compared with community violence-exposed youth with moderate or low assertion scores or youth with no history of community violence. Additionally, a significant positive association between family violence exposure and internalizing symptoms was found. The implications of the unique and additive effects of family and community exposure on psychopathology in youth, as well as the role of social skills as a protective factor, are discussed.

Children in Danger
Children in Danger

Author: James Garbarino

Publisher:

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13:

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"Childhood is ideally a time of safety, marked by freedom from the economic, sexual, and political demands that later become part of adult life. For many children, however, particularly those who live in our inner cities, childhood is increasingly a time of danger. The urban war zones of Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington. D.C., are not unlike the war zones of Beirut, Belfast, and Mozambique. In both worlds, children grow up with firsthand knowledge of terror and violence. This book examines the threat to childhood development posed by living amid chronic community violence. It shows caregiving adults such as teachers, psychologists, social workers, and counselors how they can work together to help children while they are still children--before they become angry, aggressive adults." "Drawing on their extensive fieldwork in war zones around the world, the authors explore the link between a child's response to growing up in an atmosphere of violence and danger, and the social context established for that child by community and caregivers. They reveal the need for establishing predictable, structured, safe environments for children and they show how school-based programs, by providing children with the continuity and regularity that is otherwise lacking in their lives, can enhance children's natural resilience and help ameliorate some of the long-term developmental consequences of living in danger. In addition to providing firsthand accounts of how children growing up in an atmosphere of violence address their situations, the authors also examine the special concerns that relate to the training and support of teachers who deal not only with the violence in the lives of the children they teach, but also with their own personal safety and emotional response to their students' traumas."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Evidence-Based Practices for Children Exposed to Violence
Evidence-Based Practices for Children Exposed to Violence

Author: Clare Anderson

Publisher: DIANE Publishing

Published: 2011-08

Total Pages: 27

ISBN-13: 1437984258

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This report summarizes findings from federal reviews of research studies and program evaluations to help communities improve outcomes for children exposed to violence. It cites evidence-based practices that practitioners and policymakers can use to implement prevention services and activities for these children. In each case, programs and practices that are reviewed are supported by multiple research studies or program evaluations. Charts and tables. This is a print on demand edition of an important, hard-to-find report.

Handbook of Mental Health in African American Youth
Handbook of Mental Health in African American Youth

Author: Alfiee M. Breland-Noble

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-01-22

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 3319255010

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This handbook fills major gaps in the child and adolescent mental health literature by focusing on the unique challenges and resiliencies of African American youth. It combines a cultural perspective on the needs of the population with best-practice approaches to interventions. Chapters provide expert insights into sociocultural factors that influence mental health, the prevalence of particular disorders among African American adolescents, ethnically salient assessment and diagnostic methods, and the evidence base for specific models. The information presented in this handbook helps bring the field closer to critical goals: increasing access to treatment, preventing misdiagnosis and over hospitalization, and reducing and ending disparities in research and care. Topics featured in this book include: The epidemiology of mental disorders in African American youth. Culturally relevant diagnosis and assessment of mental illness. Uses of dialectical behavioral therapy and interpersonal therapy. Community approaches to promoting positive mental health and psychosocial well-being. Culturally relevant psychopharmacology. Future directions for the field. The Handbook of Mental Health in African American Youth is a must-have resource for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as clinicians and related professionals in child and school psychology, public health, family studies, child and adolescent psychiatry, family medicine, and social work.

Community Violence Exposure, Adverse Childhood Experiences and Posttraumatic Distress in a National Sample of Urban Workers
Community Violence Exposure, Adverse Childhood Experiences and Posttraumatic Distress in a National Sample of Urban Workers

Author: Sherry Muterspaugh Walling

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13:

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Violence continues to plague urban communities. The impact of community violence has been widely researched in children and adolescents; however, adult members of urban communities have been largely overlooked. The current study investigated the community violence exposure of 284 urban community development workers across five U.S. cities. Exposure to community violence, history of adverse childhood experiences, and current level of posttraumatic distress were assessed in order to test the hypothesis that adverse childhood experiences moderate the relationship between community violence exposure and posttraumatic distress. The findings indicate that urban workers are exposed to high levels of community violence with 74.9% reporting direct victimization and 99% reporting indirect violence exposure. In addition, 99% of participants reported exposure to adverse childhood experiences, and 14% of the sample met the diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A multiple regression analysis confirmed that adverse childhood experiences and community violence exposure were significantly positively related to PTSD. However, the significant interaction between the two predictors was suppressing rather than enhancing, indicating the salience of ACEs over and above community violence in predicting increased PTSD symptoms when both variables are present. Implications for urban work agencies are discussed.

Handbook of Multicultural Perspectives on Stress and Coping
Handbook of Multicultural Perspectives on Stress and Coping

Author: Paul T. P. Wong

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2007-02-15

Total Pages: 641

ISBN-13: 0387262385

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The only book currently available that focuses and multicultural, cross-cultural and international perspectives of stress and coping A very comprehensive resource book on the subject matter Contains many groundbreaking ideas and findings in stress and coping research Contributors are international scholars, both well-established authors as well as younger scholars with new ideas Appeals to managers, missionaries, and other professions which require working closely with people from other cultures

Helping Children Cope with Trauma
Helping Children Cope with Trauma

Author: Ruth Pat-Horenczyk

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-01-21

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 1317934660

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Helping Children Cope with Trauma bridges theory and practice in examining emerging approaches to enhancing resilience and treating traumatised children. Adopting a child-centred perspective, it highlights the importance of the synergy between individual, family, community and social interventions for recovery from post-traumatic stress. Consisting of chapters by an international range of contributors, the book is presented in three sections, reflecting the ecological circles of support that facilitate healthy development in the face of traumatic circumstances. Section 1, Individual, addresses the impact of exposure to trauma and loss on post-traumatic adaptation, focusing on biological aspects, attachment patterns, emotion regulation and aggressive behaviour in children. Section 2, Family, looks at the concept of family resilience, the impact of trauma on playfulness in toddlers and parents, innovative models for working with children traumatised by war, domestic violence and poverty and describes the challenges faced by refugee families in the light of intergenerational transmission of trauma. Section 3, Community, broadly explores the concept of community resilience and preparedness, the centrality of the school in the community during times of war and conflict, post-traumatic distress and resilience in diverse cultural contexts and the impact of trauma work on mental health professionals who live and work in shared traumatic realities. The book concludes with a theoretical discussion of the concept of Survival Mode as an organisng principle for understanding post-traumatic phenomena. Helping Children Cope with Trauma will provide mental health professionals, child welfare workers, educators, child development experts and researchers with a thorough understanding of the needs of children after trauma and how those needs may best be met.