University of California, Berkeley Academic Center of Excellence on Youth Violence Prevention

University of California, Berkeley
Franklin Zimmering, JD - Principal Investigator
Institute for the Study of Social Change
383 Boalt Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-7200
Zimring@law.berkeley.edu
Center website

The Center for Culture, Immigration, and Violence Prevention will forge a partnership among the Institute for the Study of Social Change at the University of California at Berkeley, the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, the University of California at San Francisco, affiliated researchers at other Bay Area institutions, community organizations, and state, local, and federal agencies. The defined community of Asians and Latinos in Oakland, California, will offer this Center an unparalleled opportunity to explore community-based research on youth violence in an urban area that reflects racial and ethnic diversity, a range of immigrant experiences, and a coalition of scholars and community members committed to effective prevention. The Center will foster new models of scholarship, nurture the next generation of researchers on youth violence prevention, and build the capacity for communities themselves to address problems of violence.

The mission of the Center is to provide a gathering place for community members, policy makers, and researchers to identify community priorities regarding violence, conduct innovative research, and to translate and disseminate information and knowledge into health and community practice. Partners, researchers, and community members will work collaboratively and strategically to fulfill the Center's mission and its ultimate goal to reduce youth violence, particularly among immigrant populations, in Oakland, California. Youth violence is broadly defined as any intentional use of violence (physical, emotional, relational) by or against youth ages 10-24. Ancillary goals of the Center include conducting multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary work that can foster scientific creativity and new understanding in youth violence research and practice; building community capacity through participatory research; and translating research findings into health and community practice in the most efficacious, efficient, and culturally-responsive manner.

To carry out its mission, the Center has delineated six specific objectives: 1) to highlight and understand the role of culture and immigration in youth violence; 2) to examine the effectiveness of prevention and intervention programs for immigrant populations; 3) to provide methodological advances in intervention research that consider cross-cultural and developmental differences; 4) to provide training for students, researchers, professionals, and community members on culture/immigration in youth violence and intervention research; 5) to engage and work with community members to reduce youth violence in Oakland, California; and 6) to narrow gaps between research and practice in youth violence prevention, promoting the integration of evidence-based youth violence prevention practices with community-based, culturally-specific approaches.

The research agenda of the Center is consistent with these objectives, examining the role of culture and immigration in youth violence, and conducting prevention/intervention research that considers cross-cultural differences and similarities. The Center proposes one core research project, one small project, and one seed project. The core research project entails working collaboratively with the East Bay Asian Youth Center, a community-based organization, to conduct an outcome evaluation of the San Antonio Village Collaborative (SAVC), which provides an array of after-school learning programs and parent action committees for parent engagement and leadership training. SAVC works primarily with Asian and Latino youth and their families in Oakland, and operates under an integrated and multicultural theoretical framework. The small research project examines the process and context for incorporating empirically-supported, school-based programs into culturally-diverse, resource-poor settings, while the seed project is a process and outcome evaluation of an intervention designed for high-risk Southeast Asian girls.