Research that Benefits Children and Families—Uplifting Stories

 In 2001 the U.S. Department of Justice implement a project called the Safe Start Initiative. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention started the initiative in the hope of mitigating some of the effects on children exposed to violence. Current estimates indicate that in the United States as many as 10 million children have witnessed or been victims of violence in their homes or communities.  Children’s exposure to violence has been linked to lower academic achievement, as well as, increased anxiety, depression, and anger. Increased alcohol and drug abuse is also a result. The project was divided into several phases.

 In 2011, The RAND Corporation researched the effectiveness of phase two of the project and found positive results. Phase two involved the implementation and evaluation of a range of interventions to help children and families cope with the effects of children’s exposure to violence at 15 sites throughout the country.

Because of many obstacles in collecting data, forming strong conclusions was not possible. What was learned for future implementation, is the type of obstacles practitioners using these types of interventions will face and how to modify their approaches.

Despite difficulty in data collection researchers were able to identify that many of the programs were successful in establishing their individual program goals. The programs were able to develop procedures to increase identification of children exposed to violence. Also, communication and coordination among service providers was established. Services gaps for children and their families were addressed through interagency and communitywide partnerships. Overall awareness of the effects on children who are exposed to violence was increased, as well as, the need to respond to it with effective interventions.

As we are continuously reminded of the violence in our communities and schools by daily news reports this is an example of research providing effective techniques and increasing community resources to help reduce some of the consequences for the children and families exposed to the violence. May we someday be able to stop all the violence!

As a student learning about research and feeling slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of creating a research simulation, I was reassured to find out that this project was still considered successful and useful information was gathered despite the researchers having difficulty with data collection.

References

Jaycox, L. H., Hickman, L. J., Schultz, D., Barnes-Proby, D., Setodji, C.M., Harris, R., Acosta, J.D., & Francois, T. (2011). National evaluation of safe start promising approaches: Assessing program outcomes. Retrieved from The RAND Corporation website: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/technical_reports/2011/RAND_TR991-1.sum.pdf

U.S. Department of Justice: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. (2001, April). Children’s exposure to violence: The safe start initiative. Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/fs200113.pdf