Youth Violence: Additional Resources

CDC Resources

CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH)
DASH strives to prevent serious health risk behaviors among children, adolescents, and young adults. The division also offers many resources on preventing violence in schools.
Measuring Violence-Related Attitudes, Behaviors, and Influences Among Youths: A Compendium of Assessment Tools [PDF 6.01MB]
This compendium provides researchers and prevention specialists with a set of tools to assess violence-related beliefs, behaviors, and influences, as well as to evaluate programs to prevent youth violence.
A Comprehensive Technical Package for the Prevention of Youth Violence and Associated Risk Behaviors [PDF 4.09MB]
This technical package is a compilation of a core set of strategies to achieve and sustain substantial reductions in youth violence. Technical packages help communities and states prioritize prevention activities based on the best available evidence. This package is intended as a resource to guide and inform prevention decision-making in communities and states.
National Centers of Excellence in Youth Violence Prevention
CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention funds five National Centers of Excellence in Youth Violence Prevention (formerly, Academic Centers of Excellence). The purpose of the Centers is to reduce youth violence in defined high-risk communities by implementing and evaluating a comprehensive strategy to prevent youth violence. Centers work with researchers, local organizations, and a high-risk community to reduce youth interpersonal violence. Centers monitor youth violence, support the development and application of effective youth violence prevention programs, and mobilize and empower communities to address youth violence. Centers serve as local, regional, and national resources for developing and applying effective evidence-based prevention strategies in communities.
STRYVE
STRYVE is a national initiative led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to prevent youth violence. To realize its vision—safe and healthy youth who can achieve their full potential as connected and contributing members of thriving, violence-free families, schools, and communities—STRYVE is working to increase awareness that youth violence can and should be prevented, promote the use of youth violence prevention approaches that are based on the best available evidence, and provide guidance to communities on how to prevent youth violence. STRYVE helps communities take a public health approach to preventing youth violence—stopping it before it even starts.
Preventing Youth Violence: Opportunities for Action
Everyone has an important role in stopping youth violence before it starts. CDC’s Preventing Youth Violence: Opportunities for Action and its companion guide provide action steps to help everyone be a part of the solution.
Youth Violence Training and Technical Assistance Center
CDC has established a new Youth Violence Training and Technical Assistance Center (YVTTA) via a cooperative agreement with the American Institute of Research. The YVTTA will develop tools and resources to assist 12 local public health departments and their community partners coordinate and implement youth violence prevention approaches that are part of their comprehensive plan.

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Other Federal Resources

CrimeSolutions.gov
The Office of Justice Programs’ CrimeSolutions.gov is a U.S. Government website that categorizes the research on what works in criminal justice, juvenile justice, and crime victim services.
Youth.gov
Youth.gov is the U.S. government website that helps users create, maintain, and strengthen effective youth programs. Included are youth facts, funding information, and tools to help users assess community assets, generate maps of local and federal resources, search for evidence-based youth programs, and keep up-to-date on the latest, youth-related news.
National Criminal Justice Reference Service
This service offers an extensive source of information on criminal and juvenile justice, providing a collection of clearinghouses supporting all bureaus of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the Office for Victims of Crime Resource Center.
National Gang Center
The National Gang Center is a collaborative effort between the Office of Justice Programs’ Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. This web site features the latest information about anti-gang programs and links to a wide range of resources.
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention—Model Programs Guide
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s Model Programs Guide (MPG) is designed to assist practitioners and communities in implementing evidence-based prevention and intervention programs that can make a difference in the lives of children and communities. The MPG database of evidence-based programs covers the entire continuum of youth services from prevention through sanctions to reentry. The MPG can be used to assist juvenile justice practitioners, administrators, and researchers to enhance accountability, ensure public safety, and reduce recidivism. The MPG is an easy-to-use tool that offers a database of scientifically-proven programs that address a range of issues, including substance abuse, mental health, and education programs.
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention—Strategic Planning Tool
The Strategic Planning Tool is a resource that encompasses four interrelated components to assist in addressing a community’s gang problem. Those components link descriptive information about risk factors, best practices, strategies, and research-based programs. Communities can catalogue existing local resources by creating a Web-based Community Resource Inventory account accessed on this tool.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) provides national leadership, coordination, and resources to prevent and respond to juvenile delinquency and victimization. OJJDP supports state and community efforts to develop and implement effective and coordinated prevention and intervention programs. OJJDP also seeks to improve the juvenile justice system so that it protects public safety, holds offenders accountable, and provides treatment and rehabilitative services tailored to the needs of juveniles and their families.
Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative
The Safe Schools/HS Initiative is a unique Federal grant-making program designed to prevent violence and substance abuse among our Nation’s youth, schools, and communities. This comprehensive approach to Youth Violence Prevention is administered through the Substance Abuse Mental Health Service Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Stopbullying.gov
Stopbullying.gov lists information and federal resources on how to identify and prevent bullying.
United States Secret Service — National Threat Assessment Center, Safe School Initiative [PDF 1.6MB]
In 2004, the Secret Service completed the Safe School Initiative (SSI), a study of school shootings and other school-based attacks. Conducted in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education, the study examined school shootings in the United States as far back as 1974, through the end of the 2000 school year, analyzing a total of 37 incidents involving 41 student attackers. The study involved extensive review of police records, school records, court documents and other source materials, and included interviews with 10 school shooters. The focus of the study was on developing information about the school shooters’ pre-attack behaviors and communications. The goal was to identify information about school shootings that may be identifiable or noticeable before such shootings occur, to help inform efforts to prevent school-based attacks.

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Additional Online Resources

American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association and MTV (Music Television) are encouraging young people to become proactive in identifying the warning signs of violent behavior in themselves and their peers.
Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence / University of Colorado at Boulder
The Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence works from a multidisciplinary platform on violence to bridge gaps between the research community, practitioners and policy makers. An Information House collects research literature on the causes and prevention of violence and provides direct information. In 1996, the Center initiated a project to identify violence prevention programs that met high scientific standards of program effectiveness and could provide the foundation for developing a national violence prevention initiative. The results, Blueprints, describe 11 practical and effective violence prevention programs that have effectively reduced adolescent violent crime, aggression, delinquency, and substance abuse. Another 18 programs have been identified as promising programs.
Children’s Defense Fund / Education and Youth Development Division
The goal of Children’s Defense Fund’s Education and Youth Development Division is to give every child a safe start in life. The Division does so by identifying and promoting programs and policies that keep children out of trouble, protect them from violence, and provide them with a safe and productive learning environment.
Children’s Safety Network / National Injury and Violence Prevention Resource Center
The Children’s Safety Network provides resources and technical assistance to maternal and child health agencies and organizations seeking to reduce unintentional injuries and violence toward children and adolescents. This is one of four Children’s Safety Network Resource Centers funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
National Archive of Criminal Justice Data
The National Archive of Criminal Justice Data facilitates and encourages research in criminal justice. It does so by preserving and sharing data resources and providing specialized training in quantitative analysis of crime and justice data.
The National Gang Crime Research Center
The National Gang Crime Research Center exists as a non-profit independent agency with the mission statement to: (1) Promote research on gangs, gang members, and gang problems in cooperation with federal, state, and local government agencies; (2) To disseminate up-to-date valid and reliable information about gangs and gang problems through the official publication of the NGCRC, the Journal of Gang Research, and, (3) To provide training and consulting services about gangs to federal, state and local government agencies.
National Mental Health and Education Center
This public service program of the National Association of School Psychologists provides resources for safe-school programs and crisis response and offers information on current issues and programs.
National School Safety Center
The Center provides training materials on school crime prevention and safe-school planning to educators, law enforcers, and other professionals who work with youth. Educational information is also provided for parents.
The Prevention Institute Urban Networks to Increase Thriving Youth through Violence Prevention
Urban Networks to Increase Thriving Youth through Violence Prevention (UNITY) is a national initiative designed to strengthen and support cities in preventing violence before it occurs and to help sustain these efforts.