We propose to develop, implement, and evaluate an innovative youth and caregiver-engaged, community-based approach to preventing multiple forms of youth violence among low-income urban, Latino boys and girls. We will build on our long-standing collaboration with Latino Health Access (LHA) in Santa Ana, CA, to expand their youth promotoras (lay health workers) network into a comprehensive Youth Engaged for Action (YEA) program, and to extend our effective Madres a Madres promotora-led family engagement program to focus on adolescents and their caregivers, including building in a new component designed to strengthen attachment relationships. We will conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the integrated YEA/Madres program embedded in a larger 10-year Building Healthy Communities (BHC) initiative funded by the California Endowment (2010-2020) in six Santa Ana neighborhoods with violence rates approximately six times the national average. We propose to deliver the YEA/Madres program in three of these neighborhoods, with the other three neighborhoods serving as comparison sites. In this manner, we can evaluate empirically the impact of the YEA/Madres program on individual and neighborhood-level outcomes.
Using a randomized controlled trial, this project will develop, implement, and test the effectiveness of the YEA/Madres program on youth violence and dating violence outcomes for low-income, urban Latino adolescents and their mothers or female caregivers. The YEA/Madres program engages youth and their families in building cognitive and behavioral skills, strengthening relationships, and engaging with communities to support violence prevention. We utilize an innovative model of lay community health workers (promotoras) to enhance cultural relevance, feasibility, and sustainability of the intervention in low-income, culturally diverse communities.
