WholeSchool and IndividuallyBased

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Whole-School and Individually-Based Violence
Prevention What Works for Whom? Morehouse
School of Medicine James P. Griffin, Jr.,
Ph.D. Atlanta, GA June 19, 2002 Hamilton Fish
Institute Safe Schools for the 21st
Century Monterey, California
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Presentation Points Previous research Description
of the Project Purposes Population Location Progr
am Structure Intervention Elements School-wide
Action Planning Nested Intervention Review of
Similar Study Evaluation Quantitative Qualitative
Preliminary Findings Recommendations and Future
Program Direction Closing
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Previous Work in the AreaEffectiveness of a
Violence Prevention Curriculum Among Children in
Elementary School.
Grossman, D., Neckerman, H. Koepsel, T., Ping-Yu,
L., Asher, K., Beland, K, Frey, K, and Rivara, F.
(1997) JAMA.
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Supporting Study

• Design
• Randomized Controlled Trial
• Setting
• Urban and Suburban Elementary School
• Participants
• 790 2nd and 3rd Grade Students

Grossman, D., et al. (1997) JAMA
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Previous Research

• Intervention
• Curriculum
• Teacher Training
• Parent Rating
• Direct Behavioral Observations

Grossman, D., et al. (1997) JAMA
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Previous Research

• Results
• No significance found for Self-reported,Parent
  Reported, or Teacher Reported Data
• Significance was found in Direct Observation
• Conclusions

Grossman, D., et al. (1997) JAMA
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Description of the Project The Violence
Prevention Project Combines Research-based,
School-wide and Student-centered Interventions
It is a collaboration between school system
personnel, administrators, medical school
program staff, and students
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Purposes

• Reduce the frequency of violent events in
• the school environment
• Improve the overall safety of the
• school setting
• Strengthen the instructional infrastructure
• within the school environment

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• Population Served
• Overwhelming (gt99) African-American
• student population
• Sixth, seventh, and eighth grade
• middle school students (N 630)
• Students reside in urban neighborhoods
• Public school students with mixed
• academic performance
• Middle income to working lower income

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Location On Atlanta, GAs west side Within a
ten-mile radius of the downtown business district
of Atlanta
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Violence Prevention Project Program Structure
School-wide Action Planning Team School-wide
initiatives Professional Development and
Organizational Development Consistency Management
and Cooperative Discipline BASIS Model Dealing
with Escalating Students Stress Management
Nested Intervention (Program within a
program) Curriculum-based instruction in
violence prevention
Comparison Middle School Regular School Program
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Intervention Elements School-wide Action
Planning Teachers Counselors Curriculum
Specialists Maintenance Staff Parent
Liaison Information Specialist Professional
Development Working through instructional
teams Nested Intervention (Second Step) Tuesday
and Thursday sessions Ninety minutes for 18 weeks
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Whole School Intervention Professional
Development and Organizational
Development Consistency Management and
Cooperative Discipline BASIS Model Dealing
with Escalating Student Behavior Stress
Management
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Nested Intervention (Program within a program
student-centered cognitive-behavioral
training) Randomized by grade level and
gender using students from the whole-school
site Intervention Training 2 Xs per
week Comparison Regular academic program and
whole-school activities (same
location) Comparison school Regular academic
program in another school setting
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Pull-out Services for Students Volunteering for
the Program Uses the Second Step
Curriculum Prosocial skill Empathy Identificatio
n of social alternatives to violence Recognition
of other peoples feelings Coping with peers
including bullies Anger management
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African-American cultural enrichment and
historical instruction Linking violence
prevention with reading and writing lessons in
the classroom to reinforce academics Educational
Games and Recreational Activities
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Evaluation Quantitative Self-report using the
Hamilton-Fish student violence survey
Motivation to Fight Scale
Indicate how much you agree or disagree with the
following statement. Strongly agree Agree Neither
Agree or Disagree Disagree Strongly Disagree I
would probably get into a fight if
someone Shoved me Tried to start a fight with
me Bullied me Spread rumors about me Disrespected
or insulted me
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Evaluation Quantitative Self-report using the
Hamilton-Fish student violence survey Common
Victimization Scale and Common Perpetration Scale
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Evaluation Quantitative Self-report using the
Hamilton-Fish student violence
survey Motivation to Fight (would fight if
shoved, bullied, target of gossip,
disrespected) .79 alpha Common Aggression by
Victimization (hit, punched, slapped--as a
victim) .81 alpha Violent Perpetration (hit,
punched, slapped--done to others) .86
alpha Qualitative Focus group among 7th and 8th
graders
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Findings to Date Outcome Evaluation
(Non-equivalent control in comparison school
and randomized group design within the
intervention school) Aggregated multivariate
analysis of variance Intervention vs. comparison
students at the whole school site vs. students
at a comparison school after the two years of
implementation at the whole school site
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Findings are based on two years of implementation
in the Nested Intervention Includes data from
Time 3 (pre-test, year two) and Time 4
(post-test, year two) assessments
Whole-school/Pull-out Violence Prev.Training
Comparison School
Comparison at Turner
Intervention at Turner
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Findings after Second Year
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Findings after Second Year
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Findings after Second Year
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Findings after Second Year
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Findings after Second Year
Cohens D .7 Large
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Findings after Second Year
Cohens D .5 Medium
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Effect Size
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Focus Group Questions
What about the Morehouse School of Medicine
program was most helpful?
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Focus Group Responses

• Learning and problem solving
• Understand the real way to solve difficult
  problems
• Dont have bad attitudes no more
• Helped me think of what to do before I do it
• Solve problems
• Reflect on past events
• Never say nothing when somebodys talking
• Learn more than one way to resolve problems

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Focus Group Responses

• Techniques to prevent fighting
• Avoid arguments
• No way because I fight and just don't care
• To express my thoughts in a gentle manner
• To be the smart one in the situation
• Stop talking about people
• To control my attitude to others
• To stop the violence at home
• Encouraged friends not to fight
• Not to fight

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Conclusions
The Second Step Training and cultural
intervention appeared to be effective for
females but not for males. Intervention effects
appeared to be large for preventing female
victimization and moderate for decreasing female
perpetration An individualized curriculum-based
and cultural enrichment intervention coupled
with the whole-school approach appeared to be
more effective than the organizational approach
or the regular school program alone.
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Recommendations for Similar Programs
Incorporate parent training and increase
parental involvement through home-based
services Solicit more peer involvement in the
intervention Focus on increasing fidelity of
whole-school instructional strategies through
incentive-based professional development Link
classroom learning objectives more closely with
violence prevention aims Encourage teachers who
participate in the initiative to implement
violence reduction through recognition and
awards ceremonies Incorporate additional
measures of effectiveness such as direct
observation, similar to Grossman et al., 1997.
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Closing
Thank you for your time and attention.