Deborah Gorman-Smith, Patrick Tolan, David Henry, and Michael Schoeny, Principal Investigators
2009

This is a multisite school violence prevention initiative. Four sites (UIC, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Georgia at Athens, and Duke University) have implemented a multicomponent intervention designed to address a major scientific question regarding reducing school violence: Are greater reductions in school violence found when a general violence-prevention program is implemented with all children in a given grade, or when an intervention is targeted at those youth who are at greatest risk for involvement in violence (i.e., those already participating in a high rate of aggressive behavior), or are both types of intervention needed?

Programs that have previously shown the greatest promise in reducing youth violence were implemented and are being evaluated. The intervention components are broken down into two approaches: universal and targeted intervention. The universal intervention was implemented with all students in 6th grade. The universal intervention has two components: a social cognitive and problem solving intervention delivered to students and a teacher-training component around the issues of classroom management strategies and building awareness of aggression and victimization in the classrooms. The targeted intervention focuses on those students who are at high risk for violence and includes a family intervention delivered in multiple family groups and a school-monitoring component. Twelve Chicago Public Schools were randomized into four groups: 1) four schools receiving the universal intervention; 2) four schools receiving the targeted treatment; 3) four schools receiving both treatments; and 4) four comparison schools.