Violence and Trauma Prevention

Contacts

John Weil Court Interventions, Community Safety 3712 MHRA, P.O. Box 26170 Greensboro, NC 27402 Phone: 336-334-4184 Email: jdweil@uncg.edu

Stacy Sechrist, Ph.D. Violence and Trauma Prevention 3714 MHRA, P.O. Box 26170 Greensboro, NC 27402 Phone: 336-334-4302 Email: smsechri@uncg.edu

Section Description/Goal

To address the impact of violence and trauma through prevention and intervention efforts  driven by translational research strategies that shape action, increase community safety, and promote well-being.

Section Initiatives/Project Names/Brief Description

1. North Carolina Safe Communities (NCSC) – in partnership with law enforcement, resource providers, and communities, this initiative provides training and technical assistance and evaluation of a group focused deterrence model to reduce group and gang violence across 10 sites in North Carolina.
2. Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) – PSN is a federal initiative to reduce gun and gang violence through prevention, intervention, and suppression.  CYFCP serves as the research partner for the Middle Judicial District of North Carolina, assisting eight PSN “sites” (the cities of Durham, Greensboro, High Point, Salisbury and Winston-Salem and counties of Alamance, Cabarrus, and Orange) with data compilation and analysis to identify violent crime dynamics and build collaborative violence reduction strategies.
3. The Juvenile Court Infant Toddler Initiative (JCITI)– provides comprehensive assessments and treatments for children 0-3 that have been removed from their homes due to abuse, neglect, or dependency.
4. Piedmont Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (PICAC)/Child Sexual Predators – this initiative is a partnership among law enforcement in six counties to evaluation the identification, tracking, and prosecuting of child sexual predators, enhancement of sex offender registration programs and functions, and improvement of information sharing between law enforcement agencies.
5. Evaluating Community-Based Reentry Programs – this evaluation focuses on  assessing the impact and effectiveness of ten community-based adult reentry programs across the state to examine outcomes such as recidivism for program participants including re-arrests, reconvictions, and re-incarcerations.
6.  Greensboro Gang Violence Reduction – this initiative is in partnership with the Greensboro Housing Authority entails an evaluation of prevention and intervention programming in the City of Greensboro.
7. Guilford County Gang Prevention Assessment – this initiative uses the OJJDP Comprehensive Gang Model to assess programming strengths, gaps, and service delivery capacity related to gang prevention across Guilford County.
8. Communities Empowering Youth – this initiative is led by Winston-Salem State Center for Community Safety to build the capacity of faith based organizations serving youth at risk for gang involvement, with UNCG’s role being evaluating the development and training and technical assistance efforts to support this capacity building.
9. Healthy Adolescent Relationships – this initiative is a partnership with Guilford County Department of Public Health and the Guilford Coalition on Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention to assess current services and gaps related to healthy adolescent relationships, teen pregnancy prevention, and adolescent sexuality from a variety of perspectives in order to inform future prevention interventions.
10. NC Trauma Task Force – this initiative focuses on capacity building, coordination, and implementation of training and technical assistance statewide for best practices related to trauma-informed systems of care and trauma-specific services (e.g., trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy).
11. Youth Leadership / Empowerment Programming  – this initiative focuses on the implementation and evaluation of youth leadership and empowerment programs that are gender specific for special populations related to the mental health consequences of violence and trauma, including girls in the foster care system, girls with severe emotional and/or behavioral disturbances, and boys in the juvenile justice system with substance abuse problems.
12. Mental Health Treatment Court – this initiative focuses on the evaluation of the Guilford County Mental Health Treatment Court, which is a voluntary treatment alternative to traditional district court case dispositions for offenders with a mental health diagnosis or mental health treatment history.