Community Psychology:
An Example Examining
Violence Prevention Program
Effects on Urban Youth
Susan McMahon, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair, Psychology
smcmahon@depaul.edu
DePaul University
Chicago, Illinois USA
November 24, 2011
Presented to Dogus University
Istanbul, Turkey
Community Psychology
Some core components that I value and
use…..
– Values
• Diversity, creating positive change to improve well-being,
focus on underserved populations, action orientation
– Theories
• Systems & interconnections
• Individuals are nested within settings at multiple levels
– Skills
• Program evaluation, consultation, collaboration, groupfacilitation, critical thinking, problem solving
Prevention
– Many more problems than we can address
through traditional treatment approaches
– Demonstrated effective on cost-effective
Empowerment
– Facilitate feelings of control and abilities to
create change and improve situation
– Individual, group, organizational, community
DePaul Programs
Ph.D. Programs
– Clinical Program (established in 1967; 2 tracks)
• Clinical-Child
• Clinical-Community
– Community Program (established in 2000)
Undergraduate Community Concentration

Focus: develop theory, knowledge, skills, &
experience to work with diverse, urban,
underserved populations
Ph.D. Curriculum & Core
Requirements
 Core Community Courses
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–
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–
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Community Psychology (2)
Principles of Consultation
Seminar in Program Evaluation
Field Work (spans 2 years)
Grant Writing
Seminar in Prevention & Intervention Methods
Empowerment or Health Psychology
Diversity
Psychology of Women or Social Psychology
 Core Statistics/Research Methods
– Statistics I, Statistics II, Research Methods
– Factor Analysis, Multivariate, Mixed Methods, Qualitative (2)





4 electives in any area
Master’s Thesis
Comprehensive Examination or Project
Internship (for clinical-community program)
Doctoral Dissertation
Undergraduate Community
Psychology Concentration
 Common psychology core:
– Introductory Psychology I
– Introductory Psychology II
– Introductory Statistics
– Research Methods Sequence (2)
– History & Systems in Psychology
 Community Core
– Community Psychology
– Principles of Field Research and Action
– Field Work in Community Research and Action - 2 course internship
sequence
 Diversity
– Psychology of Women, Psychology of Men, Cultural Issues in Psychology,
Psychology of the African-American Child (1)
 Other Core Psych
– Social Psychology, Industrial and Organizational Psychology (1)
– Child Psychology, Adolescent Psychology (1)
– Theories of Personality, Abnormal Psychology (1)
SCRA Resources & Connections
 SCRA (Society for Community Research & Action; APA
Division 27)
– http://www.scra27.org/
– Educational program list
 My role: Regional Network Coordinator
– Enhance national & international networks
– Provide leadership & communication regarding membership;
Organize International Regional Liaisons (IRLs)& Regional
Coordinators
 Europe IRL’s
– Faculty, graduate student, and undergraduate student
openings
School-Based Violence Prevention with
African American Youth
Began work in 1996
Schools approached Mental Health
Center for services to address violence
Combined research, training, and service
– Clinical students work in community as part
of their practica experience
Focus on underserved population with
high rates of violence and poverty
Youth Violence
Significant problem
Youth are both victims and perpetrators
Over 1/3 of homicides in the U.S. are
committed by youth
Urban minority youth are at particular risk
Exposure to Violence
 Numerous negative outcomes
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Anxiety disorders
Depression
Low self-esteem
Aggressive & violent behavior
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Academic
Family dysfunction
Substance abuse
Interpersonal difficulties
Peer rejection
Involvement in juvenile justice system
Aggression: stable across time
Theoretical Underpinnings
 What are the mediating factors that contribute to
the impact of exposure to violence on aggressive
behavior?
 Social information processing theory (Huesmann, 1998)
– Interactions with environment combine with personal
factors to make certain schemas & scripts more likely
– External Events
– Cognitive Filters
• Normative Beliefs about Aggression
– Retaliatory
– General
– Street Code
• Self-Efficacy to control aggression
Theoretical Model
Community
Violence
Exposure
Belief in
Retaliation
SelfEfficacy
Aggressive
Behavior
χ2
Model (Cross-sect) 3.97
Model (longitudinal) 3.79
df
2
2
p
0.14
0.15
RMSEA
0.09
0.10
RMR
0.04
0.04
GFI
0.98
0.98
AGFI
0.92
0.90
CFI
0.97
0.96
Environmental Ecology
Neighborhood
– Norms
– Acceptability of & Exposure to violence
School culture
– Socially shared knowledge, norms, & values
– Can influence new programs
Sense of belonging
– Links to well-being
Violence Prevention
Over 150 programs available
Few programs with empirical support
Few evaluations with urban, at-risk youth
Second Step
– Widely used skills-based curriculum
– Highly rated
– Specific developmental curricula
• Pre-kindergarten (28 sessions) to 8th grade (15 sessions)
– Modest empirical support
Components of Second Step: A
Violence Prevention Program
Knowledge
Empathy
Impulse Control
Anger Management
Problem Solving
Applying Skills
Role plays, video vignettes, puppets
Context of Current Studies
COMMUNITY-BASED
ORGANIZATIONS
TRAINING
Practicum
Systems-level issues
Cultural Sensitivity
SERVICE
Co-teaching Model
Implementation Support
Consultation
RESEARCH
Formative Evaluation
Summative Evaluation
Study 1: Preschool & Kindergarten
Children
 Participants
– 109 African American and Latino children
 Settings
– 3 preschool classrooms & 2 kindergarten classrooms
– Serve housing development residents that differ from
1 another in terms of size, diversity, & culture
– Poverty & Violence
 Pre-test/Post-test design
– Pre-test in the Fall; Post-test in the Spring
– Curriculum implemented during academic year by
teachers and graduate students
Measures
Measures Administered at
Pre-test and Post-test
Child Interviews
Individual Protocol
Knowledge
Teacher Ratings
Social Skills Rating System
(SSRS)
Problem Behaviors
Social Skills
Behavioral Observations
Classroom-Level
2-4 Hours per class
5-minute Intervals
Disruptive Behavior Verbal Aggression Physical Aggression
Preliminary Analyses
Settings differed by age and race
Females scored higher at pre-test on SSRS
Social Skills
Older children scored higher at pre-test on
SSRS Problem Behaviors
Results: Interviews
(Knowledge and Skills)
17
15
13
11
Pre-Test
Post-Test
9
7
5
3
Preschool
Kindergarten
Problem Behaviors (Preschool)
(Teacher Report)
8
7
6
Pre-Test
Post-Test
5
4
3
Problem Behaviors (SSRS)
Behavioral Observations
1.4
1.2
1
0.8
Pre-Test
Post-Test
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
Disruptive
Behavior
Verbal
Aggression
Physical
Aggression
Implications
 Preliminary support for this program with this
population
– Children learned many concepts
– Problem behaviors decreased from pre-test to post-test
• Setting Differences
• Teacher:child ratio
– Preschool student: teacher ratio 4:1
– Kindergarten student:teacher ratio 27:1
– More opportunities to reinforce program concepts
• Developmental differences
– Findings consistent with few existing studies
Study 2: Violence Prevention with
Middle School Students
Method
– Community & Schools
• Public housing development residents
• Two public elementary schools
– Participants
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156 students completed pretest
149 students completed posttest
64% female
5th-8th grade
Ages 11-14
Training & Implementation
CPS teachers & DePaul staff
– 4 hours of training
– Co-teaching model
• Co-taught 1st 8 sessions
• Transfer of training
– Weekly or bi-weekly meetings
Implementation
Program Monitoring
Hypotheses
•Aggressive Behavior
•Impulsivity
•Knowledge & skills
•Prosocial Behavior
•Empathy
Measures
 Knowledge
– Second Step Knowledge and Skill Survey
 Aggressive Behavior
– Aggressive Behavior Scale, self-report
– Teacher Checklist, teacher-report
– Peer Rating, peer-report
 Prosocial Behavior
– Teacher Checklist, teacher-report
– Peer rating, peer-report
 Empathy Scale
 Impulsivity
 Psychological Sense of School Membership Questionnaire
Preliminary Analyses
 Examined potential pretest differences:
– school
– grade
– gender
 Differences found, so these variables taken into account
in all analyses
 Correlations
– Higher teacher-rated aggression
• lower knowledge
• lower teacher-rated prosocial behavior
• higher self-rating of aggression & impulsivity
– Higher peer-rated aggression
• higher self-rating of aggression
• lower knowledge
 Construct validity
Analyses
Repeated measures ANOVAs
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Knowledge
Empathy
Impulsivity
Sense of school membership
Repeated measures MANOVAs
– Aggression (teacher, peer, self)
– Prosocial behavior (teacher, peer)
Knowledge & Skill Survey
 Wilk’s  = .93, F (1,123) = 8.73, p = .004
6.0
5.5
5.0
4.5
4.0
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
Mean
1.0
.5
0.0
Wave 1, S econd Step,
Wave 2, S econd Step,
Teacher Checklist-Aggression
•Wilk’s  = .90, F (3,71) = 2.70, p = .052
•F (1,73) = 6.58, p = .012
Teacher Checklist-Aggression
21
20
19
school id number
18
School A
17
School B
Pre-Test
TIME
Post- Test
Teacher Checklist-Prosocial
 Wilk’s  = .88, F (2,85) = 5.74, p = .005
 F (1,86) = 7.88, p = .006
Teacher Checklist-Prosocial by School
Wilk’s  = .93, F (2,85) = 3.21, p = .045
F (1,86) = 5.70, p = .019
Empathy
 Wilk’s  = .96, F (1,90) = 4.13, p = .045
Empathy
14.5
14.0
13.5
13.0
Pre-Test
TIME
Post- Test
Empathy by School
 Wilk’s  = .93, F (1,90) = 6.69, p = .011
Empathy
15.0
14.5
14.0
13.5
School
13.0
School A
12.5
School B
Pre-Test
TIME
Post- Test
School Membership
 F (1,86) = 6.384, p = .013
Discussion
Some success in teaching:
– Knowledge & skills
– Empathy
– Prosocial behavior (teacher-report)
Replication of previous research
– Mixed support
Increase in empathy
– Predictive of decreases in aggression
Importance of school context
Most consistent influence
School B
– Increase in prosocial behavior
– Increase in empathy
– Increase in sense of school membership
Other differences between schools?
– School A has 4 times the % of chronic truants
– Teacher characteristics?
– Implementation issues?
Factors that Influence the
Intervention Processes & Outcomes
Program Impact
Family Influences
School Environment
Neighborhood
Culture
Strengths & Limitations
 Strengths
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High-risk students & community
Need for prevention
Few evaluations
Multiple reporters
Theory-based outcomes
 Limitations
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Lack of a control group
Longitudinal, but only across one year
Missing data
Measurement of some constructs
Implications
 Consider school & teacher variables
 Explore & integrate ecological factors
– Intra-individual skills deficits
– Ethnic/racial identity
– “Code of the streets”
 Explore & evaluate cultural & community
specific components
 Need to better understand what interventions are
effective under what conditions for whom