University of California, Riverside Southern California Center of Excellence on Youth Violence Prevention

University of California, Riverside
Nancy Guerra, PhD - Principal Investigator
University of California at Riverside
Presley Center for Crime and Justice
110 College Building South
Riverside, CA 92521
Nancy.guerra@ucr.edu
Center website

This center will continue and expand the research, practice, and training activities of the Southern California Academic Center of Excellence on Youth Violence Prevention housed at DC Riverside (ACE-UCR), in partnership with the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. The overarching mission of the ACE-UCR is to develop and evaluate a comprehensive strategy to prevent youth violence among low-income Latino and immigrant youth in three service areas in Southern California. Grounded in a developmental-ecological framework, four main objectives will guide our work: (1) community mobilization and support; (2) youth and parent education and training; (3) theory development and testing; and (4) knowledge transfer and dissemination.

We propose to enhance the activities of the ACE-UCR focused on youth violence prevention by continuing and building on our current activities, including: (a) expanding our community mobilization efforts by directing intensive focus in our primary service community, Santa Ana, and-by continuing our work with Riverside/Arlanza and Perris; (b) expanding our infrastructure to support additional surveillance of youth violence; (c) increasing our understanding of issues facing low income ethnic minority and immigrant populations, particularly Latinos, through community mobilization and work with our Community Committee; (d) conducting an effectiveness trial of the Families and Schools Together (FAST) intervention with Latino families in Santa Ana 92701; (e) developing and evaluating the Child Development Parent Training (CDPT) program for dissemination by pediatricians and lay community health workers (f) developing and piloting the Positive Life Choices (PLC) positive youth development program for at-risk adolescents in our target community and the California Youth Authority; (g) augmenting our data archives on youth violence etiology and prevention research for secondary analyses, (h) conducting an Agency Dissemination Survey to determine barriers to adoption and implementation of evidence-based practices; (i) continuing training of graduate students in youth violence prevention through the Summer Institute, and adding an alternating program for junior faculty; and (j) continuing to conduct workshops, conferences, and authors' meetings to develop joint publications and edited books.