The National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention

Kathleen Tomberg and Jeffrey A. Butts

This project was supported by Grant No. 2010-MU-FX-0007 awarded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official positions or policies of OJJDP or the U.S. Department of Justice.

INTRODUCTION

In 2012, the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College began to publish the results of an assessment conducted between Summer 2011 and Summer 2012. The project measured the effectiveness of the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention.

The findings suggested that the initiative was generating important changes in five communities participating in the National Forum (Boston, MA; Detroit, MI; Memphis, TN; Salinas, CA; and San Jose, CA). Survey respondents reported a number of potentially valuable outcomes, including expanded opportunities for youth, improvements in the extent of inter-agency and cross-sector collaborations, and successful efforts to draw upon the knowledge and expertise of a broad range of community members. According to survey respondents, the National Forum cities were developing stronger capacities to reduce youth violence.

In 2016, with the support of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the John Jay research team launched a new iteration of the same survey in all 15 cities then involved in the National Forum. The respondents in the new survey were positive about their growing collaborations and the effectiveness of their strategies for preventing youth violence. As with the previous surveys, the 2016 survey measured the perceptions of community leaders. It was not a direct measure of youth violence.

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