A Comprehensive Parent-Child Prevention Program for Youth Violence: The YEA/MADRES Program

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

Project Summary We propose to develop, implement, and evaluate an innovative youth and caregiver-engaged, community-based approach to preventing multiple forms of youth violence among low-income urban, Latino boys and girls. We will build on our long-standing collaboration with Latino Health Access (LHA) in Santa Ana, CA, to expand their youth promotoras (lay health workers) network into a comprehensive Youth Engaged for Action (YEA) program, and to extend our effective Madres a Madres promotora-led family engagement program to focus on adolescents and their caregivers, including building in a new component designed to strengthen attachment relationships. We will conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the integrated YEA/Madres program embedded in a larger 10-year Building Healthy Communities (BHC) initiative funded by the California Endowment (2010-2020) in six Santa Ana neighborhoods with violence rates approximately six times the national average. We propose to deliver the YEA/Madres program in three of these neighborhoods, with the other three neighborhoods serving as comparison sites. In this manner, we can evaluate empirically the impact of the YEA/Madres program on individual and neighborhood-level outcomes.