Longitudinal effects of Youth Empowerment Solutions: Preventing youth aggression and increasing prosocial behavior

Abstract

Youth violence remains a significant public health problem despite efforts to address it. We describe the evaluation results of Youth Empowerment Solutions (YES), an after-school active learning program implemented by trained local teachers and designed to engage middle school youth in multi-systematic promotive behaviors at the individual-, interpersonal-, and community-level to make lasting positive changes within the context of institutional disadvantages, such as racism. First, we used a modified randomized controlled trial design to examine the direct and indirect influence of YES on prosocial and delinquent behaviors 12 months after the conclusion of the program, through youth empowerment. Next, we evaluated these models by race, to determine if the intervention equitably promotes prosocial outcomes and decreases aggressive behaviors. Among 329 middle school students, YES participation enhanced prosocial behaviors through empowerment, and directly reduced aggressive behaviors a year after the conclusion of the program. This trend was particularly pronounced for African American youth. These effects were found after controlling for age, sex, and behavioral outcomes at baseline, and across different schools and teachers, suggesting that YES can also be sustainable and readily implemented by communities. The implications of the results for youth violence prevention, empowerment theory and intervention development and practice for ethnic minority youth who face structural disenfranchisement are discussed.

Keywords: African American; adolescent; community development; empowerment; resiliency; violence prevention.

FIGURE 1

Model of YES participation (T1), Psychological Empowerment (T2), and Prosocial Behavior (T3) Effect Size (standard error) *p < .05. Model Total Effect: 0.114 (0.044)* indirect effect of YES on Prosocial Behavior through PE: 0.053 (0.018)* direct effect of YES on Prosocial Behavior: 0.061 (0.041). Model controlled for prosocial behavior at T1, sex (male reference group), race/ethnicity (Black reference group), participant age (at T1), period between the start of YES (T1) and date of data collection at end of intervention (T2), and period between start of YES (T1) and 12-month follow up (T3)

FIGURE 2

Model of YES Participation (T1), Psychological Empowerment (T2), and Aggressive Behavior (T3) Effect Size (standard error) *p < .05, ^p < .10. Model Total Effect: −0.212 (0.099)* Indirect effect of YES on Aggressive Behavior through PE: −0.006 (0.036) Direct Effect of YES on Aggressive Behavior: −0.206 (0.119)^. Model controlled for aggressive behavior at T1, sex (male reference group), race/ethnicity (Black reference group), participant age (at T1), period between the start of YES (T1) and date of data collection at end of intervention (T2), and period between start of YES (T1) and 12-month follow up (T3)