Initiatives

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Youth Violence Prevention

See presentation from the 2008 Linking Forces XV Annual Children’s Mental Health Conference (.ppt)

Background: Following a wave of violent shooting deaths involving youth and children in the first half of 2006, The Children’s Trust launched the Youth Violence Prevention Initiative. At our July meeting County Commissioner and Children’s Trust board member Barbara Jordan, challenged The Children’s Trust to develop a program, perhaps more so to lead a movement, to end the senseless murder of our children. Trust chair David Lawrence, Jr. took this call to action as fundamental to the vision and principles of The Children’s Trust. And, our Board of Directors passed a resolution allocating $9 million to be invested in three $3 million dollar annual amounts and instructing the staff to receive proposals from community partners seeking to implement strategies to reduce violence in the geographic areas of Miami-Dade County most plagued by the problem. Two initial community forums of concerned citizens, government officials, members of The Children's Trust’s Board of Directors and its staff convened in July 2006 to discuss and plan the initiative.

Opening Meeting - July 13th, 2006
1. Agenda
2. Injury Mortality and Hospitalizations in Miami-Dade Presentation
3. Associated Factors and What Works presentation
4. Best Practices Programs table
5. Currently Funded Programs
6. Additional Web Resources

Second Meeting - July 26th, 2006
1. Agenda
2. ITN Draft
3. Best Practices Program Tables (updated)
4. What Works handout
5. Currently funded programs by area
6. Additional resources (updated)

The Melissa Institute - September 21st, 2006
Download Speech by Modesto E. Abety, The Children's Trust President/CEO

This initiative is designed to strengthen and improve neighborhoods through coordinated and cooperative intervention among the many players and stakeholders in affected communities. The Children’s Trust invests in community-based solutions to reduce violence and stop child and youth murder in specific geographic areas where violence and other negative societal indicators have correlated throughout the past year and in historical periods of violence. The initiative focuses on seven geographical areas covering 15 neighborhoods based on escalated rates of youth-involved violent crime, as identified by data provided by the Injury Free Coalition for Kids of Miami’s Injury Surveillance System. The neighborhoods of focus are Brownsville, Carol City, Coconut Grove, Florida City, Goulds, Homestead, Liberty City, Little Haiti, Miami Gardens, Naranja-Modello, North Miami, North Miami Beach, Opa-Locka, Overtown, and West Perrine.

The initiative’s structure is to foster neighborhood-based collaboration that addresses three core community violence prevention program elements and an optional fourth component: Community Policing and Law Enforcement; Civic and Community Outreach, Engagement, and Mobilization; Best Practice Service Delivery; and Public Awareness Media Campaign (optional). See the competitive Invitation to Negotiate (ITN), which was issued in Fall 2006.

Implementation: The awards made through the competitive ITN process in late 2006 resulted in 7 annual contract awards (see table below), eligible for 2 renewals pending appropriate performance (for a possible 3 years of funding). Contract terms began in February 2007, and are currently in their second year term (Feb. 2008-Jan. 2009). The objective of the Youth Violence Prevention is to support neighborhood-based collaboration to address civic and community outreach, engagement and mobilization. The initiative aims to engage best-practice service delivery in violence prevention/reduction; and to encourage public awareness media campaigns regarding these issues. The Children’s Trust dedicates approximately $3.7 million annually from February 2007 through January 2010. See Board Resolution #2008-48 (.doc), approving the first renewal of the initiative’s contracts.

In addition to being focused in geographic areas, agencies work within 25 public schools:

During 2007-08, only 6 of the 7 contracts were executed and provided services. Most partnerships faced ongoing challenges to contract execution due to internal organizational, unanticipated and prolonged contract negotiations caused by difficulties among the partnerships in formalizing collaborations and challenges in defining scopes of service. As a result of the late start dates of the contracts, outcomes and outputs were not fully met for this initiative for the first year of funding. A total of 4,259 children and youth were served (60% of the 7,084 proposed for the six contracts). In addition, 344 parents and caregivers were served (34% of the 1,000 proposed).

The second contract year of the youth violence prevention initiative (starting February 2008) is expected to serve 8,355 children and youth, and 870 parents and caregivers, as noted below:

Expected Outcome Performance: This initiative addresses outcomes consistent with the overall goal of reducing fatalities and serious injuries caused by gun violence in community neighborhoods with high incidence rates. All collaborations focus contractually on three primary outcomes:

• Decrease negative, aggressive or high-risk behaviors;
• Improve parenting skills and effectiveness; and
• Increase civic engagement and community involvement

An external evaluation of this initiative is planned to assess its effectiveness during the 2008-09 fiscal year. This evaluation will also be supported by a current Research and Innovation contract with Justice and Security Strategies, Inc.’s Mapping and Spatial Analysis to Study Youth Violence and Social Disorganization (see the Scope of Service (.doc) for this contract).

Rationale/Return on Social Investment:  Violence costs the United States an estimated $425 billion in direct and indirect costs each year, according to The U.S. Surgeon General (Illinois Center for Violence Prevention, 1998).  Of these costs, approximately $90 billion is spent on the criminal justice system, $65 billion on security, $5 billion on the treatment of victims and $170 billion on lost productivity and quality of life.  The annual costs to victims are approximately $178 billion (Illinois Center for Violence Prevention, 1998).

The most logical way to reduce these costs is to prevent violence altogether.  Preventing a single violent crime averts not only the costs of incarceration, it simultaneously prevents the short and long-term costs to victims, in terms of material losses and costs associated with physical and psychological trauma.

Further research suggests that interventions targeting at-risk youth—either children who act out or delinquent youth—are more cost-effective than interventions for general population youth.  Studies confirm prevention is more cost-effective in the long run than incarceration.

In his book Diverting Children from a Life of Crime: Measuring Costs and Benefits, P.W. Greenwood reports, on average, evidence-based programs return $11 to $22 for every dollar invested in at-risk youth crime prevention.  Research has shown that even programs aimed at non-offenders can achieve significant cost-benefits when future savings to potential crime victims (due to a reduction in the number of victims) and the taxpayer are combined.  Greenwood’s findings make a cogent argument in favor of investing in programs and initiatives that prevent violence before it occurs.