Prevention - Violence and Injury

Most teens work by the time they graduate from high school. Although work can be a positive experience, it also has risks. Every year 100,000 teens are seriously injured on the job. To improve the safety of young workers, the center provides training for the staff of school and community-based job readiness and placement programs, preparing them to teach teens about occupational safety and health. The center also provides seminars, technical assistance, and resources to employers of youth and to other education and employment-related organizations serving youth.

Activity Impact

The goal of this project is to pilot an innovative school violence prevention program called Voices Against Violence/Voces Contra La Violencia. This video-based program focuses on the critical, but often neglected, role youth and adult bystanders, including parents, can play in preventing school violence. As part of the Columbia Center for Youth Violence Prevention, Voices Against Violence/Voces Contra La Violencia has been implemented in multiple classrooms at a middle school in New York City. Strategies for involving parents as well as youth and school staff have been explored.

EDC will conduct a comprehensive scan of child maltreatment prevention efforts in state public health agencies across the United States. Based on the findings from this environmental scan, best practices in the prevention of child maltreatment will be outlined for state public health agencies. This information will be used to inform guidelines and develop tools for state public health leadership in the prevention of child maltreatment and the promotion of Safe, Supporting, Nurturing Relationships (SSNR).

HHD/EDC developed the Campus Mental Health Action Planning webinar series to provide college and university administrators and clinical staff with the knowledge and skills needed to better understand the mental health problems affecting their community and to determine appropriate responses.

While research has identified a number of effective suicide prevention strategies, many have not been put into practice. Through this project, EDC will create toolkits with easy-to-use educational materials and interactive resources that will also focus on institutional and personal barriers that prevent suicide from being addressed in each setting, and provide motivation to create more positive environments.

EDC will produce two new 10-15 page publications—one specifically targeted for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and the other for their families. They will be based on the VA National Center for PTSD’s successful publication for war veterans, “Returning from the War Zone”.

Eyes on Bullying is a national, multimedia bullying prevention program designed to provide parents and caregivers with user-friendly and effective ways to learn the essential principles of bullying prevention. The multimedia program, initially developed for IBM employees, includes a 42-page Toolkit with key information, resources, and six skill-building activities for caregivers and parents to use with children.

OJJDP created a national effort to enhance the development of mentoring programs for youth involved in the juvenile justice system, juvenile reentry, and foster care. This initiative promotes collaboration among community organizations and agencies committed to supporting mentoring services for system-involved youth. Its objective is to identify and support the development of new and effective mentoring programs and determine how to expand these models for system involved youth.

Building Collaboration for Mental Health Services in California Schools is an initiative funded by the California Department of Education through California’s Mental Health Services Act. This project aims to engage mental health and education professionals in an effective planning process to prepare for implementing California’s Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) in schools.