Since 2015, the Michigan Youth Violence Prevention Center has evaluated the effects of community-engaged greening on crime, injury, property conditions, and resident perceptions in Flint, MI and Youngstown, OH. We have also conducted an implementation study to identify key barriers and facilitators to community engaged greening and the core components that are necessary to scale up this intervention for youth violence prevention. The 2020-2021 supplement to the Michigan Youth Violence Prevention Center will extend our current research on place-based, community engaged greening for youth violence prevention in several ways. First, we will pilot test combinations of strategies, including the use of physical barriers (e.g., rails, fencing), reporting, cameras, and other technology to address illegal dumping. Dumping was identified as a chronic barrier to greening efforts and neighborhood revitalization by our community partners in Flint, MI, Youngstown, OH, and Camden, NJ during our learning exchanges held in Year 4. Second, we will extend our outcome evaluations of community engaged greening to study its effect on new youth violence related outcomes. Third, we will deepen our understanding of how high-functioning organizations operationalize the best-practices for community-engaged greening programs that we identified in our implementation study and explore how they leverage local resources and policies to scale up their programs. Fourth, we will disseminate our findings through a robust online resource center that we will develop in partnership with the Center for Community Progress (CCP).
The specific aims of our YVPC for this supplemental application are to: 1) expand and build upon the greening strategy by pilot testing and evaluating the implementation of resident-engaged dumping prevention strategies that utilize technology in Flint and Camden; 2) expand analysis of community-level greening approach and its effects on firearm incidents, housing conditions (and their effects on youth violence outcomes), and child abuse and neglect; 3) expand on policy and implementation studies through in-depth case studies of exemplar programs; and 4) disseminate the results of our research and practice to local, state, and national audiences via a comprehensive online resource center operated by CCP. The MI-YVPC is a partnership among the University of Michigan, Rutgers University, Center for Community Progress, the Genesee County Land Bank Authority, Cooper's Ferry Partnership, Columbia University, the U.S Forest Service, and community stakeholders in Flint and Camden.
The Michigan Youth Violence Prevention Center (MI-YVPC) will extend our study of community-engaged greening for youth violence prevention. We will expand our outcome evaluation study by examining the effect of the community engaged greening intervention on new outcomes, including child maltreatment, youth- involved firearm incidents, and housing-related violence outcomes. We will build on our completed implementation study by visiting and studying exemplar greening programs from our National Survey sample to document how they operationalize best practices and leverage local policies to scale up.
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