"Their help is not helping": Policing as a Tool of Structural Violence against Black Communities.

Objective: To illustrate Black youth's perceptions of police violence in West Louisville, Kentucky, how they make sense of it, and their responses to it.

Method: The study used qualitative interviews with youth ages 10 to 24 residing in West Louisville. The interviews did not specifically inquire about experiences with police, but the theme emerged so strongly from the overall analysis that the current study was warranted.

Structural and social determinants of inequities in violence risk: A review of indicators.

There is disproportionate risk for violence conditioned on inequities due to race, socioeconomic status, gender, and where people live. Consequently, some communities are more vulnerable to violence and its repercussions than other communities. This study aims to share indicators that might be useful for violence prevention researchers interested in measuring structural or social determinants that position communities for differential risk of experiencing violence.

Practices for Improving Secondary School Climate: A Systematic Review of the Research Literature.

School climate has received increased attention in education policy and, in response, educators are seeking strategies to improve the climates of their middle and high schools. However, there has been no comprehensive synthesis of the empirical evidence for what works in school climate improvement. This article constitutes a systematic review of programs and practices with empirical support for improving school climate.

Levels of community engagement in youth violence prevention: the role of power in sustaining successful university-community partnerships.

Previous research indicates that communities can be engaged at various levels in research to reduce youth violence. In this paper, we argue that the method of power sharing among partners is a central factor distinguishing different levels of engagement. Using cases from the Nashville Urban Partnership Academic Center of Excellence, we identify community initiation and community collaboration as distinct approaches to community engaged violence prevention research.

A community-based participatory approach to youth development and school climate change: the alignment enhanced services project.

Background: School-community partnerships offer an opportunity to promote positive youth development. However, there is a need for community-based participatory research (CBPR) models that leverage community and school resources to create environments that support youths' success.

Objective: Describe the CBPR process used by Alignment Enhanced Services (AES) partners to develop and implement a strategy to promote a positive school climate, and to discuss factors that influence the AES process in the schools.

The adolescents, life context, and school project: youth voice and civic participation.

The Adolescents, Life Context, & School project was developed in a suburban, residential area of Padova, Italy, and involved three classes of 12-year-old children. Across three months, children observed, documented, and talked about their own life contexts in order to voice problems to decision makers. Both teachers and council members played key roles in supporting the project and the children's work.

Parenting and antisocial behavior: a model of the relationship between adolescent self-disclosure, parental closeness, parental control, and adolescent antisocial behavior.

This study used data collected from a sample of 840 Italian adolescents (418 boys; M age = 12.58) and their parents (657 mothers; M age = 43.78) to explore the relations between parenting, adolescent self-disclosure, and antisocial behavior.

Risk factors for serious alcohol and drug use: the role of psychosocial variables in predicting the frequency of substance use among adolescents.

Reviews of the psychosocial risk factors of adolescent alcohol and drug use suggest that the highest risks can be summarized as: 1) psychological functioning, 2) family environment, 3) peer relationships, and 4) stressful life events. The purpose of this study is to describe the relationships among the most common risk factors among a clinical sample (n = 214) and to determine the collective importance of these risk factors on problems with substance use. Collectively, these risk factors were most effective in explaining alcohol use and binge drinking and marijuana use, which were the most frequent types of substance use in this sample.

What works in prevention. Principles of effective prevention programs.

The high prevalence of drug abuse, delinquency, youth violence, and other youth problems creates a need to identify and disseminate effective prevention strategies. General principles gleaned from effective interventions may help prevention practitioners select, modify, or create more effective programs. Using a review-of-reviews approach across 4 areas (substance abuse, risky sexual behavior, school failure, and juvenile delinquency and violence), the authors identified 9 characteristics that were consistently associated with effective prevention programs: Programs were comprehensive, included varied teaching methods, provided sufficient dosage, were theory driven, provided opportunities for positive relationships, were appropriately timed, were socioculturally relevant, included outcome evaluation, and involved well-trained staff.