Earlier this month, Chapin Hall welcomed the addition of a nationally renowned research team led by newly appointed research fellow Deborah Gorman-Smith, who brings extensive research work and expertise in youth violence prevention.

Youth violence is a most timely issue. This month’s violent clash on the streets of Chicago causing the death of an honor student has prompted renewed discussions on the multifaceted problem of violence in inner cities. The Chicago Tribune talked about “curing a public epidemic” and the need for rigorous evaluation of programs, including evidence-based interventions.

“My work focuses on understanding the development of children and youth and the risks they and their families face in order to inform violence prevention and positive youth development, especially in low-income urban communities,” says Gorman-Smith.

“Deborah Gorman-Smith’s work has important links to Chapin Hall’s ongoing work,” says Matthew Stagner, executive director of Chapin Hall. “Our research reflects a broad view of children’s needs and the supports needed to address their problems. That means that we focus not only on children, but also on their families, the communities in which they live, and the resources—both public and private, formal and informal—available in communities to foster their healthy development.”

Gorman-Smith has been a leader in the Families and Communities Research Group (FCRG) at the University of Illinois-Chicago, which examines how the family tasks of raising and protecting children are affected by the social context in which they live. Over the last 20 years, the group has carried out a program of research focused on advancing knowledge about development, risk, and prevention with children, youth, families, and the settings of their development. The FCRG includes Michael Schoeny, who also joins Chapin Hall; Patrick Tolan; David Henry; and their colleagues.

Complementing the mission of Chapin Hall to better inform policy and practice through research, Gorman-Smith serves as Distinguished Research Fellow with the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy—a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to promote government policy based on rigorous evidence of program effectiveness.

With the arrival of Gorman-Smith and her team, the Chicago Center for Youth Violence Prevention, of which she is the director and principal investigator, joins Chapin Hall. This center brings together researchers, community representatives, practitioners, and policymakers committed to understanding and reducing youth violence within poor, inner-city communities in Chicago. It is a collaboration of three major groups including FCRG; the Chicago Project on Violence Prevention, which currently has CeaseFire programs in 11 Chicago communities and 4 cities in Illinois; and the Illinois Center for Violence Prevention, the only statewide nonprofit organization in the nation focused on preventing violence across the stages of life.

The core work of the center is guided by the perspective that the most effective way to combat the problem of youth violence is through the coordination of empirical “pre-intervention” work designed to better understand risk factors associated with involvement in youth violence, and through evaluation of preventive interventions conducted both under tightly controlled conditions and in real-world settings.

Studies conducted as part of the center exemplify these approaches. Using data from the Chicago Youth Development Study, a longitudinal study of risk for delinquent and violent behavior among urban males, Gorman-Smith and her colleagues examine risk and protective factors as related to involvement in different forms of youth violence, including dating violence. In collaboration with community partners, the team is working to collect more timely surveillance data around episodes of youth violence.

Fundamental to this work has been the development and evaluation of family-focused prevention interventions. One of the centerpieces, a large prevention trial called Schools and Families Educating Children (SAFE Children), is designed to aid children and their families as they transition into school by providing individual reading tutoring and a multiple-family group program.

“Central to the work of Deborah Gorman-Smith and her colleagues is the understanding that context matters—that characteristics of the neighborhood and community in which youth and families reside are important both in impacting risk and in the development of effective interventions,” says Stagner. “This work complements Chapin Hall’s long-term focus on neighborhood and community characteristics, and initiatives to improve the circumstances of children and families. Her arrival at Chapin Hall broadens and deepens our research and our potential impact on policy and practice.”