Program Profile: The Leadership Program's Violence Prevention Project

This is a school-based prevention program for students between the ages of 12 and 16, which is designed to increase peer support, improve conflict-resolution skills, and decrease acceptance attitudes toward aggression and violence. The program is rated Promising. Treatment group students reported a statistically significant lower likelihood of using negative conflict-resolution skills (e.g., verbal or physical aggression), compared with comparison group students, at the posttest.

A Promising rating implies that implementing the program may result in the intended outcome(s).

Program Goals/Target Population

The main goal of the Leadership Program’s Violence Prevention Project (VPP) is to prevent violence by enhancing the conflict-resolution skills of both male and female middle and high school students aged 12 to 16. This is accomplished primarily by working on student communication and relationship-building skills. VPP’s other goals are to address the social setting in which violence occurs and to improve academic performance. Students’ tolerance for aggression and violence is lowered by targeting the classroom environment and teaching students about group dynamics. Academic performance is improved by building students’ self-concept and working on goal setting.

Program Activities/Program Theory

The VPP curricula (middle and high school) include 12 interactive lessons. One lesson is administered each week in students’ regular classrooms by well-trained program staff. Each lesson—which lasts approximately 45 minutes—features an aim or goal, brief warm-up, main exercise, and a closing discussion. Lessons use experiential, active learning to increase retention rates, get students involved, and further practice communication and relationship skills.

VPP addresses poor communication, the classroom environment, and academic self-concept. Skill building and improving students’ conflict-related attitudes and behavior occurs across multiple domains. Communication skills are essential, and most of the classroom lessons revolve around enhancing them in students. The communication skills that are stressed in the VPP curriculum include active listening, the use of “I” statements, and perspective taking. Having students see situations from another perspective and making them feel like the other person in an argument helps diffuse tension and aggression. Students’ normative beliefs about the use and acceptableness of aggressive behavior are challenged, and by teaching them better ways to communicate, aggression is seen as an unacceptable way to resolve a dispute. VPP targets academic self-concept and performance by incorporating goal setting into their lessons.

The curricula are theme based, allowing for adaptation to meet specific student and school needs. In middle school populations, the core components are typically leadership, self-affirmation, cooperation, vision and imagination, and conflict management. High school students cover those same core components and add lessons on self-concept, group dynamics, and social responsibility.

During lessons and exercises, facilitators help students explore multiple options for resolving conflicts. This gives students more choices to resolve disputes without using violence.

Study

Thompkins and Chauveron (2010) used a quasi-experimental design to determine the impact of The Leadership Program’s Violence Prevention Project (VPP) on student attitudes toward and use of aggressive behavior. Approximately 160 middle and high schools in New York, N.Y., implemented the program for 4 years, starting in the 2005–06 school year. Every year, a smaller subset of the treatment schools, those implementing VPP, were selected at random and compared to students who did not receive VPP lessons (the comparison group). Due to different school implementations of the program, proper random assignment to treatment and control groups was not possible. Students in the comparison group were matched with students in the treatment groups according to grade and academic level. Comparison group students did not receive any VPP lessons throughout the 4 years of the study.

This large study actually consisted of two smaller studies conducted on the different populations that VPP is designed to address: middle school and high school students. The middle school sample consisted of 3,264 students in sixth, seventh, or eighth grade from 24 New York City schools. The treatment group (n = 1,688 students) received the VPP curriculum administered in classrooms. The comparison group (n = 1,585 students) did not receive VPP or any other conflict-resolution training. The overall sample was almost evenly split on gender—51 percent boys—and was largely Hispanic (47 percent) and African American (36 percent). The treatment group and the comparison group differed significantly with regard to age, with the treatment group being younger. The treatment group also had a greater proportion of Hispanic students than Asian students. There were no other discernable differences between the two groups.

The high school sample consisted of 1,112 students in the 9th and 10th grades, drawn from 13 New York City schools. There were no significant differences between the treatment group (n = 587 students) and the comparison group (n = 517 students) in terms of age or racial composition. The treatment group had a slightly lower attrition rate than the comparison group, 25 percent versus 31 percent, respectively. The overall sample was again 51 percent boys, and largely Hispanic (42 percent) and African American (41 percent).

In both the middle and high school student samples, baseline surveys were administered in class before the implementation and teaching of VPP. Usually, the VPP curriculum began the week after baseline measurement. The surveys used — both pre- and posttest — gathered data on academic self-concept, peer support, normative beliefs about aggression, conflict-resolution skills, and avoidance behavior. Survey items consisted of Likert-type scales (e.g., ratings of “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”), composite behavioral scales, and vignettes to assess students’ beliefs about aggression and the types of conflict-resolution behavior they may have used. All scales used showed moderate to strong measures of validity and reliability.

The impact of VPP on student behavior was assessed with hierarchical linear modeling. This analytic plan is more appropriate for school-based studies, as it takes into account the clustering of students within schools, as well as multiple data points for each individual subject. This allows for the influence of different school environments to be captured, as well as the influence of an individual on themselves over time: repeated measures of an individual cannot be considered independent observations, as the individual’s past behavior will have an influence on their current behavior. A three-level model was used for all analyses of behavior and attitudes. The first level represents the growth trajectory or change in behavior for each student. The second level represents the variation in growth between students within a school, and the third level represents variation between schools. The study authors did not conduct subgroup analyses.

The program developers require the following items in order to properly implement the Violence Prevention Project: Administrator Guide ($176 each); Facilitator Program Guide ($132 each); Middle or High School Curriculum Manual ($89 each); Student Workbooks ($22 each); a 2-5 day training provided at the purchaser’s site, which includes biannual webinars and up to 2 hours of technical assistance and coaching for each site ($318-899 per participant, plus travel expenses, with a minimum of 15 participants); and training handouts ($40 per participant).

Other items that are available (but not required by the program developer) include booster training ($229 per participant plus travel expenses, with a minimum of 15 participants), an annual 2-day Summer Institute follow-up training in New York City ($359 per participant), technical assistance and coaching (2 free hours are included but each additional hour costs $150), and quality assurance tools, including fidelity and outcome monitoring tools (basic materials are included in the Facilitator Guide, but coaching is available at $150 per hour).

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

Following are CrimeSolutions-rated programs that are related to this practice:

Bullying Prevention Programs

The practice includes programs designed to reduce bullying perpetration and victimization and to increase positive bystander behavior in bullying situations. The practice is rated Effective for reducing bullying perpetration (e.g., overall and physical), reducing bullying victimization (e.g., overall and relational), and increasing positive bystander behavior. The practice is rated Ineffective for increasing bystander empathy for bullying victims and reducing verbal bullying victimization.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

	Juvenile Problem & At-Risk Behaviors - Bullying
	Victimization - Overall bullying victimization
	Victimization - Relational bullying victimization
	Victimization - Physical bullying victimization
	Victimization - Bystander intervention
	Mental Health & Behavioral Health - Empathy for the victim
	Victimization - Verbal bullying victimization

Universal School-Based Prevention and Intervention Programs for Aggressive and Disruptive Behavior

Universal school-based prevention and intervention programs for aggressive and disruptive behavior target elementary, middle, and high school students in a universal setting, rather than focusing on only a selective group of students, with the intention of preventing or reducing violent, aggressive, or disruptive behaviors. The practice is rated Effective in reducing violent, aggressive, and/or disruptive behaviors in students.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

Juvenile Problem & At-Risk Behaviors

School-Based Conflict Resolution Education

This practice aims to reduce school-based conflict and encourage long-term prosocial behavior. It teaches students to understand the nature of the conflict and provides options for responding. This practice is rated Promising for multiple problem or at-risk behaviors. Student participants in the programs reported significantly fewer antisocial behaviors than students in the control group.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

Juvenile Problem & At-Risk Behaviors - Multiple juvenile problem/at-risk behaviors

Selective School-Based Violence Prevention Programs

This practice consists of programs designed to prevent or reduce aggressive or violent behavior in K–12 students who are considered at risk of or who have demonstrated such antisocial behaviors. The practice is rated Effective for reducing aggression in students who participated in school-based violence prevention programs, compared with students who did not participate.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

Juvenile Problem & At-Risk Behaviors - Aggression

Why might a practice's outcome ratings differ from the ratings of specific programs encompassed by that practice?