The National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention generated important changes in five communities participating in the initiative (Boston, MA; Detroit, MI; Memphis, TN; Salinas, CA; and San Jose, CA). Survey respondents reported a number of potentially valuable outcomes. Continue reading Durable Collaborations

When researchers examined new survey findings from communities that participated in the Reclaiming Futures initiative over a ten-year period, the data suggest that communities with the strongest engagement in Reclaiming Futures tend to have more positive perceptions of their youth justice and substance abuse treatment systems, including key facets of administration, collaboration, and overall system quality. In communities where the survey scores increased significantly during the early years of Reclaiming Futures, improvements were sustained through 2015. Thus, robust implementation of Reclaiming Futures may be associated with lasting improvements in system operations. Continue reading Reclaiming Futures and Organizing Justice for Drug-Using Youth

The John Jay College evaluation of Cure Violence includes methods for estimating a critical intermediate stage in the program’s theory of change. The study measures changes in violence-related attitudes and values of young men (age 18-30) in at-risk neighborhoods and compares areas with and without Cure Violence programs. This requires the study to conduct surveys among a population of hard-to-reach and hard-to-recruit research subjects, which is when “respondent-driven sampling” is most useful. Continue reading Respondent-Driven Sampling: Evaluating the Effects of the Cure Violence Model with Neighborhood Surveys