Youth Empowerment Solutions (YES)
Principle Investigator(s): Marc Zimmerman, UM-SPH
Partners:
Project Dates: 2003 to 2008
Funding: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; PRC/MI Core Project
Description:Youth Empowerment Solutions for Peaceful Communities (YES) is an interdisciplinary community change project developed by The Flint Youth Violence Prevention (YVPC) academic-community partnership. Empowerment theory, positive youth development, and ecological theory guided the project development, evaluation, and plans for sustaining the work after the funding period ends.
The goals of the project are to provide youth with opportunities for meaningful involvement in preventing youth violence and creating community change, enhance neighborhood organizations’ ability to engage youth in their activities, and change the social and physical environment to reduce and prevent violence (especially youth violence). The project involves youth in the process of changing community physical and social environments and includes three components: 1) youth empowerment activities; 2) neighborhood organization development; and 3) community development projects that involve youth and organizations working together. Youth empowerment activities include workshops for program planning, budgeting, implementation, and evaluation; opportunities to engage their peers in community change efforts; developing ethnic identity and pride; and working with adults to achieve these goals.
The project focuses on youth and neighborhood organizations in the Holmes Middle School attendance area in Flint, Michigan. The Longfellow Middle School attendance area will serve as a comparison community. These areas were selected because they have characteristics associated with high levels of youth violence, high rates of crime, as well as vital neighborhood organizations, and a history of community activism.
In September 2005, fifteen students from our intervention school were recruited to form the YES Council. At its meetings members discussed community assets, plans for community projects, future workshops, photovoice presentations, team recruitment, and the leadership and positive youth development activities provided by the Flint Odyssey House Health Awareness Center. Click on this link to view examples of photovoice photos and freewrites.
The Council volunteered with “Lights On,” a national community education event that focuses attention on the importance of after school programs for youth. They were asked to speak at the State Capitol to represent the need for after-school programs. They also took part in a world hunger workshop sponsored by the University of Michigan-Flint.
School assemblies were conducted to recruit students for the YES Teams composed of 7th and 8th grade students. Forty-five students participate in YES Teams. Youth leadership Council students and the Youth Teams meet after school together. Team building activities build cohesiveness and to prepare students to work together on community projects. Field trips spark discussions on topics such as cultural pride, community assets, and creating ideas about including art in upcoming community projects. As an initial project, students and neighborhood block club leaders will turn a vacant lot into a “Peace Park” in May 2006. Four additional community improvement projects will be conducted during the summer of 2006.
The evaluation includes a quasi-experimental pre-posttest comparison group design and analysis of multiple outcomes across levels of analysis. We will assess change in community norms, fear, social cohesion and social capital using an existing community survey in the two neighborhoods. Assessment of changes in youths’ violent attitudes, norms, and behavior; ethnic identity and pride; and mental health will be assessed using a school-wide survey. We will compare the intervention and comparison neighborhoods on several community level measures including police incident data, hospital injury reports (e-codes), school suspension data. We will also conduct process evaluation to insure the fidelity of the intervention and to adapt the project when issues arise. Several participating organizations have agreed to help sustain and disseminate the program if it is found to be effective.
We have completed the "Speak to Your Health" Community Survey of randomly selected Flint residents (adults) from all census tracts in Flint and in Genesee County and have started data analyses to assess the adults' perceptions of crime and neighborhood safety in the two middle school attendance areas.
For more information, contact Everett Roberts at (810) 238-1962 or by email at everettr@umich.edu.
YES Steering Committee
C.S. Mott Foundation
Catholic Charities
Challenge Day
Community Matters
Flint Community Schools, Office of School Safety
Flint Odyssey House, Inc.
Flint Police Department
GCCARD-Teen Jury
Genesee County Family Court
Genesee County Health Dept.
Genesee County Prosecutor’s Office
Genesee County Family Independence Agency
Genesee Intermediate School District
Genesys Health System
Hurley Medical Center Trauma Outreach
IMA (Industrial Mutual Association)
Light of the World Foundation
Motherly Intercession
Mott Children's Health Center
Neighborhood Roundtable
Office of School Safety, FCS
U.S. Attorney's Office
