A Community-Academic Partnership for School-Based Nonviolence Education: The Healthy Power Program

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Youth violence is a significant problem affecting community health. Community-academic partnerships can advance youth nonviolence education by synergizing the strengths of collaborators while working toward a common goal. We describe a collaboration between an urban public middle school, community nonprofit, and university-based graduate school of nursing in implementing and evaluating the Healthy Power program, a school-based youth nonviolence program for middle-school boys. METHODS: A participatory program evaluation approach was used to plan and implement evaluation of the Healthy Power program with a cohort of 8 students. Collaborative planning allowed for the selection of measures that reflected program objectives and were of value to community partners while also scientifically sound. A mixed-methods approach included a focus group and a pretest-posttest with quantitative items and open-ended questions. RESULTS: While the quantitative pre-posttest did not show any significant change, the open-ended questions and focus group suggested that students had advanced their understanding and application of conflict resolution skills. CONCLUSIONS: The findings support the usefulness of community-academic partnerships for peace/conflict resolution education and program evaluation. Such programs may benefit from mixed methods of evaluation.