Oral

Violence continues to be a leading cause of death for teenagers and young adults. While much progress has been made in building an evidence base for youth violence prevention, there remain huge gaps between what is known and what is being done. Efforts to improve this include a major collaborative initiative among federal agencies, particularly between the Centers for Disease Control and the Dept. of Justice, to expand youth violence prevention activities especially in large urban communities and promote the need for similar collaborations at the local level. This session will present an overview of the issue of youth violence and prevention strategies and will describe the collaborative efforts from both a national and a local perspective.

Session Objectives: Explain the role of partnerships in youth violence prevention and how they can be leveraged to extend the spread, reach and effectiveness of prevention strategies. Describe collaborative initiatives focused on building an evidence base for youth violence prevention that involve national and local partnerships. Convey information on elements essential to success in maintaining and coordinating comprehensive violence prevention collaborations crossing multiple sectors and systems. Identify and assess national and local resources, relationships, arrangements, and approaches that may help them prevent violence in their own communities.