University of Chicago and non-profit organizations team up to reduce youth gun violence

School-based program will build scientific evidence about violence prevention efforts

Chicago, Illinois (NED).– The University of Chicago Crime Lab and its community partners are launching a new program designed to help society learn more about how to help adolescent boys avoid conflict and succeed in school and life.

The University of Chicago Crime Lab was established to find ways to reduce crime and violence by helping government agencies and non-profit organizations rigorously evaluate pilot programs designed to curb violence and related social problems such as truancy and school failure.

Beginning this month in 15 schools, the initiative, Becoming A Man—Sports Edition, will provide hundreds of adolescent boys around Chicago with a combination of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and access to non-traditional sports, with the hope of identifying an effective strategy for addressing the unique challenges facing many of the city’s male youth. It is the first effort designed to help scholars scientifically measure the effectiveness of these two interventions. The MacArthur Foundation, Joyce Foundation, Chicago Community Trust, McCormick Foundation, National Institute of Health, Spencer Foundation, and ComEd are among the organizations that provided funding for the $1 million program.

The first component is a group-based youth intervention designed by Youth Guidance, one of Chicago’s most experienced social service agencies. It offers counseling, systemic-change and life-preparedness programs to Chicago public school students who come from some of the city’s most challenged neighborhoods. Becoming A Man uses cognitive behavior therapy to improve students’ emotional self-regulation and social skill development to help them avoid potential conflicts. Youth Guidance has successfully implemented BAM in one Chicago high school and several elementary schools and is expanding the program to 13 other Chicago schools, where it will be available for seventh-, eighth-, ninth- and 10th-grade students.

“Sports Edition,” the second intervention component, is a package of Olympic sports that includes archery, boxing, judo, team handball, wrestling and weightlifting. It was developed by World Sport Chicago, a non-profit organization that serves as the legacy of Chicago 2016 — the organization responsible for the city’s bid for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

World Sport Chicago aims to increase the awareness of and involvement in Olympic and Paralympic sport among the city’s youth. World Sport Chicago will provide after-school sport programs that offer safe and supervised recreational opportunities directed by coaches trained in the basics of the BAM program model. This training will help support students’ social and emotional development. The sport component seeks to reinforce the principles and values that students learn through BAM. It also provides a safe and structured environment for students to engage in positive activities during after-school hours, a time when youth are particularly at risk.

For more information, visit http://crimelab.uchicago.edu <http://crimelab.uchicago.edu/> .