Community Based Approach for Dealing With Chronically Violent Under Twelve Year Old Children, Final Report

• NCJ Number: 186899
• Author(s): Sibylle Artz Ph.D.
• Date Published: 2001
• Length: 38 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: Canada Department of Justice
• Sale Source: Canada Department of Justice
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description
• Language: English
• Country: Canada
• Note: accessed 02/06/2001

Annotation

This report summarizes the findings of a 5-month study of violent students under 12 years old who are enrolled in a Vancouver Island (Canada) school district; the children who are the focus of this study participated in the Community Based Violence Prevention Project, which was also conducted in this school district.

Abstract

The 21 students who became the subjects of this study are being served by regular classroom teachers, special education classroom teachers, school counselors, school-based youth and family counselors, teaching assistants, community-based agency workers who provide special services to children and families, and Ministry for Children and Families social program officers. Only 3 of the 21 students are placed full-time in regular classrooms. The other 18 are in behavior support classrooms and spend some time in a regular classroom, depending on their ability to cope. For this study, an interdisciplinary team met and identified and discussed key issues for inclusion in the inquiry. The team agreed to assess individual case files and interventions; information gathering and record keeping procedures; the availability of community-based resources and their impact; and the Ministry for Children and Families and school-district interaction. The study also included a computer-based literature search of publications on aggressive and violent children published between 1985 and 1999. In the 5 years of the Community Based Violence Prevention Project, self-reported community and school-based participation in violence has decreased 50 percent for females and 22 percent for males. In the schools involved in the project, the school violence incident rate declined 41.2 percent. As incident rates declined, children under 12 years old who are chronic perpetrators of violence have become more visible. These younger children have not responded to the violence prevention approaches that have been effective with their less recidivistic violent peers. Of particular note in this report is the productive work of the teachers, counselors, and local agency workers who provide direct services to the students in behavior support program. The study recommends that their work must continue to be supported. 1 table and 2 references