For three area universities, a joint effort is what it might take to stop youth violence in the area.
Representatives from Penn, Drexel University and Temple University have joined forces, along with the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and various community-based organizations, to make up the Philadelphia Collaborative for Violence Prevention Center - a collaborative project with an aim to make violence among 10 to 14 year olds a thing of the past.
Funded in large part by the National Center for Disease Control as a part of its National Violence Prevention Initiative, the PCVPC focuses on stopping youth violence before it starts in West and Southwest Philadelphia.
"We are seeing higher rates of aggression among individuals in the teenage years," said Joel Fein, director and principal investigator of the PCVPC. "We are applying primary intervention to kids who may not have been perpetrators or victims of violence."
Founded in 2006, the project's ties to Penn are only getting stronger - Duane Thomas, a professor in the Graduate School of Education, was recently added to the center's roster, joining Anne Teitelman of the Nursing School and Epidemiology professor Douglas Wiebe as the project's co-investigators.
Apart from its focus on a younger age group, what sets the PCVPC apart is not only the collective effort that it represents between universities but also the focus on working with, not simply on, the West and South Philadelphia communities.
"This is a unique collaboration and speaks to how all of these institutions feel this is an important problem and want to work together," said Rose Cheney, executive director of the Firearm and Injury Center at Penn.
The PCVPV "uses a participatory research model," Cheney said. "Community members are part of the development of the research and, from that point on, there's communication going both ways."
Cheney explained that the center will pool knowledge from varying scientific fields, as well as other Philadelphia youth violence programs. Philadelphia's Center also works with similar centers across the country, in cities such as Boston, Chicago and New York.
And according to researchers, gaining the trust of the community is a key to producing the desired results of a safer Philadelphia.
"Historically, researchers have not been seen as trustworthy," said John Rich, chairman of the department of health management and policy at the Drexel school of public health. "We have to approach communities with great respect for the fact that there have been large-scale abuses in the past."
Rich stressed that researchers at the PCVPC were "committed to a long term relationship," and would not "cut and run."
"Is [the program] going to solve the problems of violence in Philadelphia? Of course not," he said. "The goal is to make a contribution in a particular area, to work with community organizations and to learn about an approach that will prevent violence. We want to be a part of the whole fabric of the people that have been working on this for a long time."
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