Community-Based Teen Violence Prevention Program

Community-Based Teen Violence Prevention Program# Student Name: Professor: Course Title: Date: Community-Based Teen Violence Prevention Program# Youth violence affects individuals’ mental health, physical health, and wellbeing, as well as the economic health of a community. Preventing and decreasing the risk of teen violence is a major challenge for communities nationwide. Every year, homicide victims include more than 4,000 young people aged 15 to 24 years, and homicide is the 3rd main cause of death amongst teenagers in the United States after unintentional injuries and suicide (Prothrow-Stith, 2015). In this paper, a community-based program is developed that seeks to prevent youth violence in the United States. Description of the Project: A Mentoring Program to Prevent Teen Violence in Wayne County, Detroit, Michigan The program will have three components: mentoring, coaching and counselling. However, more emphasis will be given on mentoring. Researchers have reported that a lack of a consistent positive adult presence or a lack of a stable home life could result in the development of youth aggression and violence (Kellermann et al., 2014). Actually, when such things are absent, teenagers have a higher likelihood of developing internalizing problems such as depression as well as externalizing problems like aggression, which place them at a higher risk for school failure and violence (Elias, 2015). Mentoring is important since it can develop emotional and social competence, in addition to building self-confidence and self-esteem. This is crucial in addressing youth violence. Mentoring refers to a non-judgmental, one-on-one relationship wherein a mentor gives his/her time to encourage and support the mentee. The mentor may provide indirect support, for instance by encouraging the mentee and challenging his/her views, or direct support to help the mentee attain a certain goal, like finding a job (Malti & Averdijk, 2017). Mentoring effectively steers teens away from the influence of gangs and supports them to achieve their full potential with the assistance of positive role models. In this program, the mentoring will provide the teenager with the chance of receiving support and guidance over an extended time period from a more experienced peer or from an adult. The mentoring will occur in various locations such as schools, public housing neighborhoods, workplaces, juvenile detention centers, churches, and community centers. This community-based teen violence prevention program is aimed at reducing teen violence in high-risk communities through the implementation of comprehensive, evidence-based prevention strategies. It seeks to stop teen violence from taking place in the first place. The prevention efforts of the program would be aimed at reducing the factors which place young people at risk for committing violence, and promoting those factors which protect at risk for violence. Community members and parents would be involved. Reese et al. (2013) pointed out that the involvement of the community and parents is vital to the success of any mentoring intervention. The community plays the role of providing an infrastructure and volunteers to support the program overall, whereas parents of the teens have to accept and support the pres...