National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention

Welcome New Grantees
Congratulations on your Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) grant award! The National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention is eager to offer support, information, and resources as your school district works to provide students with a quality education and a safe, nurturing learning environment. We e-mail our newsletter once a month to all SS/HS grantees. It contains important information regarding National Center events; new additions to the Web site (http://www.promoteprevent.org); research highlights from the mental health, education, and public health fields; and selected grants and events.

On the http://www.promoteprevent.org Web site, you will find technical assistance specialist (TAS) contact information, resources, and toolkits for implementation, sustainability, evaluation, and evidence-based interventions. The Web site can be an important addition to the technical assistance services you receive from your TAS.

New 2007 Safe Schools/Healthy Students Grantees
We are pleased to announce the following 27 new SS/HS grantees for the 2007 fiscal year:

Center Brief and Resource Page on Youth Courts
The National Center has published a new Center Brief and companion Resource page on youth courts. The Center Brief offers an introduction to youth courts, which are described as “diversion programs . . . that allow young people who have committed delinquent acts to appear before a court operated by their peers rather than a juvenile justice judge.” The brief discusses the effectiveness of these courts along with ways they can work with schools to encourage young people to take responsibility for their actions. A companion Resource page on youth courts contains a compilation of links to relevant Web sites, organizations, and publications.

For a list of Center Briefs on other topics relevant to the work of SS/HS grantees, please visit http://www.promoteprevent.org/publications/center_briefs/. Resource pages organized by topic can be found at http://www.promoteprevent.org/resources/resource_pages/.

New Resource: Developing Safe Schools Partnerships
The National Center has published two new documents that are designed to help create effective Safe Schools partnerships. The first, “Best Practices—The Role of Law Enforcement in School Safety,” outlines ways in which law enforcement and schools can effectively work together in partnership to improve school safety. The second, “Developing Safe Schools Partnerships: Spotlight on Juvenile Justice” addresses partnerships created between juvenile justice and schools.

For more information on building partnerships and coalitions, also visit http://www.promoteprevent.org/Resources/briefs/coalition building.html.

Upcoming SS/HS Events

The following is a summary of recent key findings from the fields of education, mental health, violence prevention, and/or youth substance abuse prevention.

Encouraging Reports on the Effectiveness of School-based Violence Prevention Programs
The August 2007 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine featured a number of encouraging research summaries about school-based violence prevention programs, including three summaries of the research, an important recommendation on school violence prevention programs, and commentaries by a number of important experts in the field.

A review reported in “School-Based Interventions for Aggressive and Disruptive Behavior: Update of a Meta-Analysis” (S. Wilson and M. Lipsey) analyzed studies of school-based programs targeting aggressive or disruptive behavior and found that both universal and selected/indicated programs are effective and have a practical significance for a school. The study also determined that programs are effective regardless of treatment modality (e.g., behavioral, cognitive, or social skills). Programs have the most effect upon students at highest risk since the more involved a child is in violence and aggression, the more room there is for improvement in his or her behavior. Multicomponent programs were not found to be effective. The authors speculated that using multiple components diluted the effectiveness of each. Programs targeted at special schools or classes were also not effective. The authors suggested that school staff choose a violence prevention program that they can implement with fidelity rather than based on its audience or treatment modality.

Another study, “Effectiveness of Interventions to Prevent Youth Violence: A Systematic Review” (M. Limbos et al.) confirmed that programs targeted to children already engaged in violence (indicated programs) are most likely to show reductions in violence behavior. A third review conducted by the Task Force on Community Preventive Services, “Effectiveness of Universal School-Based Programs to Prevent Violent and Disruptive Behavior” (R. Hahn et al.), found strong evidence that universal school-based violence prevention programs do prevent violence in schools.
Based on this review the Task Force issued “A Recommendation to Reduce Rates of Violence Among School-Aged Children and Youth by Means of a Universal School-Based Violence Prevention Program,” which “recommends the implementation of universal, school-based programs to prevent violence.”

This issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine also includes commentaries by Denise Gottredson, Deborah Prothrow-Stith, William Modzeleski, and Shay Bilchik.

This section highlights a few updates from the prevention field. Please go to http://library.promoteprevent.org/ for more news items and resources.

Prevention Education in Schools: Surveying Educators
Traditionally, schools have been the primary settings in which youth receive alcohol and other drug prevention education. In order to gauge the effectiveness of this approach, Join Together and Communitas Online conducted a survey of U.S. educators asking how drug and alcohol education is actually taught, what barriers are faced by teachers as they teach prevention, and what additional training, support, and materials educators could use to improve the effectiveness of these efforts. Based on the findings of this survey, researchers concluded that “schools should not be relied on as the primary element in the country’s efforts to prevent the early initiation and consequences of alcohol and drug use.” Rather, a comprehensive approach that includes the efforts of families, schools, and the community is necessary for effective prevention. Survey results, recommendations, and further resources can be found at http://www.jointogether.org/keyissues/education/.

New Report Examines Youth Suicide Rates from 1990 to 2004
A recent Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cited a significant increase in suicide in 2004 among youth and young adults aged 10 to 24 years. This sudden 8 percent increase, which brought the number of youth suicides in the United States that year to 4,599, was the largest increase in 15 years as it followed a 28.5 percent decline from 1990 to 2003. This report of suicide trends can be found at http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5635a2.htm?s_cid=mm5635a2_e.

For more information on youth suicide and prevention, visit the Suicide Prevention Resource Center’s youth resource page at http://www.sprc.org/featured_resources/links/showlinks.asp?catID=9.

Launch of a New Anti-Meth Campaign
This month, as a part of its National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, which aims to prevent overall teen drug use, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) launched a new initiative targeting methamphetamine (meth) use in several states where its prevalence is high. The Anti-Meth Campaign uses advertising tools such as TV, radio, print, and Web sites to prevent meth use and repel the myth that meth treatment does not work. While teen meth use has been down in recent years, use among young adults aged 18 to 25 has prevailed, thus highlighting the continuing need to prevent first time use. The campaign’s Web site, http://www.methresources.gov, contains an Anti-Meth Ad gallery, relevant publications and conferences, and available resources organized by state.

The Grant Opportunities page is updated regularly with announcements of current public and private grant competitions. Here is one of the listings you will find:

Title: Improving Health and Educational Outcomes of Young People
Funder: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Description: The CDC announces the availability of 2008 funds for cooperative agreements between the CDC and State Education Agencies (SEA), State Health Agencies (SHA), Territorial Education Agencies (TEA), Federally Recognized American Indian/Alaska Native Tribal Governments (TG), and large urban Local Education Agencies (LEA) to improve health and educational outcomes of young people through establishing and strengthening coordinated school health programs. Funding is made available to

Award: Up to $475,000
Eligibility: SEA, SHA, TEA, TG, and large urban LEA
Deadline: November 21, 2007
For more information: http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/FOA-801/

We regularly add to a detailed listing of conferences and events occurring within the National Center and across the nation.

Date: October 29–31, 2007
Location: Washington, D.C.
Title: The National Conference on Safe Schools and Communities 2007
Sponsor: The Hamilton Fish Institute on School and Community Violence and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
Description: The conference is intended to be a forum for debate about youth development and making schools safer, while encouraging partnerships among public, private, and not-for-profit enterprises. It will serve as a setting to exchange the most recent scientific findings and evidence-based practices in school violence prevention; encourage outcome-oriented research and improve the transfer to evidence-based practices; and highlight community collaborations. Participants will include violence prevention practitioners at all levels: teachers, school psychologists and mental health experts, social workers and counselors, school administrators and boards, community organizations and youth service agencies, law enforcement and law-related educators, court administrators, researchers, and state education agencies.
Web site: http://gwired.gwu.edu/hamfish/AnnualConference/2007/

Please visit the Events and Opportunities page at http://www.promoteprevent.org/events/ for a complete listing.

Calls for Papers
Periodically, Safe Schools Healthy Student grantees are asked to submit papers to conferences or journals.

Date: June 25–28, 2008
Location: Los Angeles, CA.
Title: Taking Action Against Health Disparities
Sponsor: National Assembly on School-Based Health Care
Description: The conference is organized into seven workshop tracks: (1) Mental health skills; (2) Primary Care; Oral Health and Nutrition; (3) Evaluation and Quality; (4) Operations and administration; (5) Policy and Advocacy; (6) Youth and Community Engagement; and (7) Leadership in Child and Adolescent Health.
Submission Deadline: October 20, 2007
For More Information: http://www.nasbhc.org/site/c.jsJPKWPFJrH/b.2554077/k.BEE7/Home.htm

Publication: Journal of Rural Mental Health
Title: Innovations in the Rural Behavioral Health Workforce for Children and Families
Description: Journal of Rural Mental Health’s special issue seeks to identify innovative and promising approaches to developing and maintaining a rural behavioral and mental health workforce for children and families in state, tribal, and local communities. It will showcase innovative workforce programs and practices in the following areas: