National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention

Welcome to the first issue of the monthly e-newsletter from the National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention. We hope this regular correspondence will prove to be valuable in your work. Thanks to all who sent suggestions last month to make the E-newsletter respond to your needs. We welcome your comments - please keep them coming. If you would like other staff members to receive the e-newsletter, please forward their email addresses to: info@promoteprevent.org

We are very pleased to introduce the National Center's website, www.PromotePrevent.org , conceived, designed, and developed with your needs in mind. Our new website features:

About the Center , which describes our mission, our services, target audience, staff, and technical partners.

Resources, including bibliographies, fact sheets, downloadable publications, and answers to frequently asked questions. In the coming weeks, we will be adding a Virtual Library, giving you access to an extensive, searchable database.

A News section, which spotlights grantee success stories and provides funding updates and new resources.

The Events page lists upcoming conferences, meetings, and online courses.

A Discussion Area where grantees can share learnings and ideas with one another and participate in scheduled dialogues with technical assistance specialists and experts. To gain access to this secure area, you will need to request an account by filling out the form found on the Discussion Area page.

The National Center was created largely to serve grantees from three different project areas with the belief that all projects share common principles for mental health promotion, youth violence prevention, and child development. We believe there is a tremendous opportunity for grantees to learn both across and within grant programs. Our Grantees at Work section seeks to present common issues and themes and approaches to manage challenges. This month we feature the themes of coalition management and process evaluation.

Building an Effective Coalition
Project Avanzar - Southern New Mexico
Youth Violence Prevention Grantee

Strategic Use of Evaluation
Fresno Unified School District - California
Safe Schools/Healthy Students Grantee

The Safe Schools/Healthy Students Team took to the road to conduct four regional technical assistance sessions for grantees in May. The Team began in Northampton, Massachusetts to meet with New England grantees and continued on to California to conduct TA sessions in Torrance, Fresno and Sacramento. Next stop - San Diego in June. The TA sessions gave grantees clustered in small geographical areas an opportunity to learn from one another and gain from the experience of SS/HS grant "graduates". Several listservs will be established to continue the information sharing experience within geographical areas as well as interest groups. The Team plans to conduct more regional meetings in the months ahead - stay tuned.

The Targeted Capacity Expansion Team , which provides TA for Prevention/Early Intervention grantees and Racial and Ethnic Disparities grantees, hosted a series of peer-to-peer conference calls on topics including Medicaid waivers. Grantees were given the opportunity to benefit from the successful efforts of other grantees in a facilitated information sharing context. The team is also working with a group of Racial and Ethnic Disparities grantees whose funding ends in September 2003. A meeting is planned for July to brainstorm ways to continue and sustain their work.

The Youth Violence Prevention Programs Team is completing grantee needs assessments and developing strategies to meet these needs. The annual meeting for grantees wasl be held earlier this month in Baltimore, Maryland. One outcome was the creation of affinity groups - grantees with similar interests/concerns will work together with the TA team and create strategies to overcome obstacles. Affinity groups will continue after the meeting in the discussion area of www.promoteprevent.org and on individual listservs.

Marty Blank from the Institute for Educational Leadership (one of our technical partners) co-authored a report with Atelia Melaville and Bela Shah entitled Making the Difference: Research and Practice in Community Schools . The 2003 report uses research and evaluation data to demonstrate the effectiveness of community schools to improve student learning and create stronger families and healthier communities. A community school is both a place and a partnership between the school and other community resources. The report features 20 different community school models across the country. For the complete report or an executive summary, visit: http://www.communityschools.org/mtdhomepage.html#download

To learn more about our technical partners, please visit: http://www.promoteprevent.org/about/partners

The following summaries of recent research articles may be of interest in your work.

A Meta-analytic Review of Mentoring Programs for Youth

Dubois DL, Holloway BE, Valentine JC, Harris C. Effectiveness of mentoring programs for youth: A meta-analytic review. American Journal of Community Psychology , 30(2), 157-197.

This article summarizes a meta-analysis of 55 empirical studies of youth mentoring programs. Outcomes and elements of each program were compared to a list of 14 potential program aspects such as location, training and supervision of mentors, average frequency of contact, etc. The analysis indicated that no single program aspect is responsible for positive outcomes, yet those programs that included a majority of the 14 characteristics were more successful. If you would like a copy of the full text and you are a grantee, email your request to: news@promoteprevent.org

Grouping High-Risk Youth for Prevention May Harm More Than Help

A January (2003) report from the National Institute for Drug Abuse cites a study by Tom Dishion and colleagues that found that youth at high risk for serious delinquency and substance abuse placed together during a 12-week cognitive behavioral program designed to reduce problem behavior had high levels of teacher-reported delinquency over three years. Their findings are consistent with other studies investigating negative peer dynamics within high-risk youth groups. For a complete citation, visit:
http://www.drugabuse.gov/NIDA_Notes/NNVol17N5/Grouping.html

Review of Suicide Preventive Interventions

Gould MS, Greenberg T, Velting DM, Shaffer D. Youth suicide risk and preventive interventions: A review of the past 10 years. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry . 2003;42(4):386-405

The authors of this paper reviewed youth suicide research from past decades. They report on the most recent epidemiological data for suicide completions, attempts and ideations. Risk and protective factors are explored and a review of the relative success rates of prevalent prevention strategies and treatment strategies is included. If you would like a copy of the full text and you are a grantee, email your request to: news@promoteprevent.org

Conferences sponsored by the National Center are listed below in green . We've also included conferences or events which may be of interest taking place in June and July. A full listing of events may be found at http://www.promoteprevent.org/events

Youth Violence Prevention Program's Annual Meeting
June 2-4, 2003 in Baltimore, Maryland. For more information, contact Kristin Schneider at the National Center: info@promoteprevent.org

Safe Schools/Healthy Student Regional Meeting
June 4, 2003 in San Diego, California. For more information, contact Kristin Schneider at the National Center: info@promoteprevent.org

Building Pathways to Success: Research, Policy, and Practice on Development in Middle Childhood
June 12-13, 2003 in Washington, DC. For more information, visit: http://www.middlechildhood.org/conference/index.html

From Bullying to Battering: Building Partnerships for Safe Schools
June 13-14 in Austin, TX. For more information, visit: http://www.austin-safeplace.org

The 2003 National School-Based Health Center Convention
June 26-28, 2003 at the Hyatt Regency, Reston, VA. For more information, visit: http://www.nasbhc.org/2003AM_cover.htm

July 2003

Targeted Capacity Expansion Working Meeting for Racial and Ethnic Disparities Grantees and Prospective Grantees for Refugee Communities
July 14-16, 2003 in Washington, DC. For more information, contact Kristin Schneider at the National Center: info@promoteprevent.org

Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America - mid-year training institute
July 27-31 in San Francisco, CA. For a complete description of courses, visit: http://www.cadca.org/Events/MidYearInstitute/2003/index.htm

September 2003

Targeted Capacity Expansion's National Meeting for Prevention/Early Intervention
September 21-23, 2003 in Washington, DC. For more information, contact Kristin Schneider at the National Center: info@promoteprevent.org

The National Center compiles a variety of funding resources of interest to grantees. We've highlighted a few key resources below. For a complete listing please visit: http://www.promoteprevent.org/news/funding_news/

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is offering a Local Initiative Funding Partners Program 2004 . A local funder must nominate your project for the grant - the application deadline is July 15, 2003.

The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) is accepting applications for COPS in Schools grants totaling $125,000 per officer position per year . The deadline for applications is June 13, 2003.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced a request for applications for the new Mentoring for Children of Prisoners grants . Applications for funding are due by July 15, 2003.

Funding and Technology Resources

Basic Elements of Grant Writing - free publication from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. http://www.cpb.org/grants/grantwriting.html

Guide to Free, Subsidized & Low-Cost Software. 45 pages, $85.00. Over 1,000 free, subsidized or low-cost software products from 70+ major software manufacturers. http://www.technologygrantnews.com/page0019.html

Guide to free Technology Resources. 40 pages, $85.00. Free technology resources for digital, distance learning, nonprofit, and education. http://www.technologygrantnews.com/page0019.html