|  | Self-Assessment and Self-Help for Teen Violence Victims Principal Investigator: Dean G. Kilpatrick, Ph.D. <bio sketch> < e-mail>
Funding Source: Office for Victim Services (OVS)
Dates of Project: 10/07 - 09/08 This project is in response to the District of Columbia's Teen Victimization Initiative. It includes four specific objectives which will help establish a coordinated community response to youth victimization and violence among teens in DC. The activities designed to accomplish these objectives will help meet the following needs as described by the Executive Office of the Mayor, Office of Victim Services. - There is a high level of victimization among teens in Dc.
- Many teen victims of such violence are unwilling to disclose incidents of violence to potentially helping adults, to report to police or other authorities and/or to seek mental health or other services.
- There is a need to provide victimized teens with an anonymous, confidential setting in which they can assess the extent and nature of their own victimization experiences as they compare to other teens in urban areas throughout the nation.
- There is a need for victimized teens to be able to do an anonymous, confidential self-assessment of the extent to which they have common victimization related-problems.
- Victimized teens who have such problems could benefit from having access to self-administered secondary tools designed to help them prevent common problems, address such problems if they have already developed, and address barriers to seeking formal mental health treatment if needed.
- There is a need to insure that the mental health community in the D.C. area is prepared to provide teen victims with mental health treatment that is best supported by evidence.
- There is clearly a need for the proposed project to collaborate closely with DC teens and service agencies to insure that the proposed products and services are culturally competent and that they have "buy in" from the local community.
The four objectives described below address these seven points. - To develop, implement, and evaluate a self-administered assessment tool to measure exposure to violent victimization for District of Columbia youth ages 12-17.
- To develop, implement, and evaluate a self-administered interactive tool that assesses common mental health and behavioral problems associated with victimization and that offers a series of self-administered psychological interventions for DC youth ages 12-17.
- To provide technical assistance to the DC Teen Victimization initiative to develop a community-based learning collaborative based on the National Child Traumatic Stress Network model used for establishing and institutionalizing the use of evidence-based practices in response to victimization-related mental health problems.
- To accomplish objectives 1-3 in a culturally competent way through consultation and collaboration with a core group of DC teens, community-based organizations, and providers who serve teens in DC.
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