NCJ Number
209289
Journal
Crime & Delinquency Volume: 51 Issue: 2 Dated: April 2005 Pages: 158-179
Date Published
2005
Length
22 pages
Annotation
This article describes a federally funded effort to prevent youth violence in an Asian Pacific Islander (API) community in Oakland, CA.
Abstract
Before describing the program, which was a community mobilization effort called the Community Response Plan (CRP), the article summarizes the literature on collaborations and coalitions. In the literature, "community mobilization" is generally defined as "the process of organizing people to work toward community improvement." The original design of the CRP was based on a Federal model called the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders, which focused on prevention as a cost-effective way to reduce youth violence. Under this model, key community leaders were mobilized to coordinate data collection and analysis in order to identify priority risk and protective factors for delinquency among API youth, as well as gaps in the service continuum. A multi-year strategy approved by local officials was developed, and a curriculum was used to facilitate the development of work-groups for data collection and analysis; resource assessment; planning, monitoring, and evaluation; legislative/policy/systems; and outreach communication and media. The focus was upon integrating and coordinating the work of existing community-based organizations (CBO's) that were already serving API youth in Oakland. The CRP provided an opportunity for these CBO's to explore what could be accomplished through a collaborative effort that focused on the needs and issues historically marginalized from discussions on policy and resource allocation. The principles underlying the success of the CRP were facilitators' inclusion of the various cultures within the API community in the research and discussions; supporting the work of CBO's, with attention to the smaller nonprofit groups; being open to input from all segments of the community; consistently following through with tasks; and maintaining open and frequent communication with CRP members. 1 table, 3 notes, and 25 references