Evaluation of the Peaceful Connections Violence Prevention Program

Project Purpose

The Peaceful Connections program, implemented by the Boys & Girls Clubs (BGC) of Santa Monica and eight partner Clubs, was launched under the Board of State and Community Corrections and its California Violence Intervention and Prevention (CalVIP) Cohort 4 grant to address youth violence in Los Angeles County and in neighboring cities (Board of State and Community Corrections, undated). The targeted communities—Carson, Compton, Gardena, Inglewood, Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Pasadena—have been disproportionately affected by violence and systemic barriers related to poverty, academic underachievement, and justice system involvement. The overarching purpose of Peaceful Connections was to leverage Club-based, evidence-informed interventions, including group and individualized services, to reduce risk factors for youth violence, strengthen protective factors, and improve educational and career-readiness outcomes for youth who are most at risk. BGC of Santa Monica contracted RAND on behalf of Peaceful Connections to conduct a process and outcomes evaluation of the program.

Goals and Objectives

Peaceful Connections has three primary goals:

• reduce youth risk factors for violence
• increase youth social connectedness
• increase college and employment readiness.

Youth members of BGCs were recruited to join Peaceful Connections. After enrolling in the program, youth completed a structured assessment that BGC designed to determine the presence of ten specific risk factors. After the assessment, youth then received services in one of two “tracks” depending on the number of risk factors identified:

• Track 1: This track involved group-based programming for youth with two to three risk factors, emphasizing social-emotional development, academics, leadership, and career skills.
• Track 2: This track provided intensive case management for youth with four or more risk factors, involving individualized goal-setting, life-skills coaching, and wraparound support. Youth in this track could also participate in Track 1 services.

Evaluation Approach

We evaluated the program using a mixed-methods design, including a quantitative analysis of data from nearly 1,400 enrolled youth and a qualitative analysis of data from staff and youth interviews and focus groups across nine Club sites.

Our process evaluation was designed to understand the following evaluation questions:

• how many youth participated in the program (by track, demographics, and Club)?
• what types and volume of services did youth receive?
• what were the barriers and facilitators to implementing the program?
• were youth satisfied with the program?

Our outcome evaluation was designed to answer the following evaluation questions:

• what psychosocial and environmental areas were addressed during case management?
• what progress was made toward youth-established goals?
• was there a reduction in risk factors during program participation?
• did participation in the program contribute to an increase in protective factors?
• do staff and participants perceive the program as effective?

We did not explicitly assess reductions in youth violence because of the prevention-oriented nature of Peaceful Connections; we anticipated that reductions in violence were a long-term outcome that were not observable during our evaluation's time frame.

Key Findings

Participant Demographics and Needs

Our analysis focused on 1,388 youth who completed the program's intake assessment. Most youth enrolled in the program were already connected to BGC. The program served a diverse group of youth (youth were ages ten through 18, evenly split by gender, and mostly Hispanic, Latino, or Black) from disadvantaged communities affected by high rates of violence. The average number of risk factors was 3.47 (standard deviation [SD] = 1.53, median = 3, range = 0 to 10). Social disconnectedness was the most prevalent risk factor (seen in 92 percent of participating youth) followed by rationalizing negative behaviors (74 percent) and impulsive risk-taking (64 percent).

Program Reach and Engagement

Of the youth with an intake assessment, 1,157 had data on the services they received through the program. Among these youth, one-third received Track 1 services only, one-third received Track 2 services only, and one-third participated in both tracks. Although the overall enrollment fell short of Peaceful Connection's original goals, the program engaged hundreds of high-need youth, many of whom participated for longer durations than initially planned in the program model. When focusing on youth who had both intake and outgoing assessments (and therefore program start and end dates), participants receiving Track 1 services were typically active for six to nine months and attended about two to three sessions per week, meeting BGC's goal of Track 1 youth participating in an average of two sessions per week over the course of at least six months. Participants receiving Track 2 services averaged nine case management sessions over the course of eight to nine months, so not all youth reached the target of 12 sessions.

Reduction in Risk Factors

Youth who participated in only Track 1 (group programming) showed no significant change in their number of risk factors, possibly because of baseline differences (e.g., their overall lower level of risk) and sample size limitations.

Among Track 2 (intensive case management) participants, there was a statistically significant reduction in total risk factors from intake to outgoing assessment (from 3.24 to 2.49). Improvements were seen in the categories of social-emotional connection, impulsive risk-taking, truancy and justice involvement, and mental health indicators. Youth who participated in more case management sessions experienced a greater reduction in risk.

Improvements in Social Connectedness and College and Employment Readiness

BGC programming directly addressed social connectedness, including the social-emotional aspects of the Track 1 curriculum. Our findings demonstrate that the social environment was addressed in about 61 percent of case management sessions. Similarly, case management sessions targeted issues related to education and employment: 70 percent of sessions covered school or work, 52 percent of sessions covered educational goals, and 30 percent covered career-readiness goals. However, about one-third of youth did not work on any specific goals during their time in the program.

From our interviews with participants, we learned that youth valued the safe and supportive environment, consistent mentorship, and individualized attention they received as part of Peaceful Connections programming—particularly in case management sessions. Staff observed improvements in youth's emotional regulation, school engagement, and social skills.

Implementation Strengths and Challenges

The integration of intensive case management into established Club programming filled gaps in mental health care and one-on-one support. Staff credited the program's success to leadership's commitment, collaboration with community resources, and the flexibility of adapting services across Club environments. However, challenges included staff turnover, data-collection limitations, variable access to private space, recruitment shortfalls at some sites, and the need for more-consistent staff training and infrastructural support.

Staff expressed a strong commitment to sustaining Peaceful Connections; some were in process of seeking diversified funding and partnerships. They felt that the program benefited participants and prompted broader cultural shifts within Clubs toward integrating mental health care and individualized care.

Limitations

There were certain limitations to this evaluation related to the methodology, data quality, and early-stage program implementation. For example, because BGC does not use case management software, staff encountered challenges in collecting and managing data, which limited the data that were available for outcome analyses and potentially biased the sample toward youth who engaged more with the Clubs. The absence of a comparison group limited analyses to observational findings, and some of the scales used to measure risk factors demonstrated low internal consistency. Case managers identified youth to participate in interviews, and interviews sometimes lacked privacy because of space constraints, which might limit the generalizability of those findings. Finally, because Peaceful Connections was a new program model, it took time to refine processes and adapt the program across sites.

Conclusions

We found that Peaceful Connections effectively engaged high-risk youth with tailored, evidence-aligned prevention programming. Track 2's case management was associated with reductions in violence-related risk factors and tangible growth in protective skills for youth. Although the program faced challenges—including data collection, training, and sustainability—it demonstrated a scalable model for integrating violence prevention and social-emotional learning into community-based youth services. BGC has expressed interest in continuing the program, and, to support future implementation, we identified the following recommendations:

• Clarify the purpose of Track 1. Because Track 1 participants did not show significant improvement, BGC should consider focusing on providing case management services and determining whether it should continue focusing on high-risk youth, or BGC should consider ways to adapt these services for medium-risk youth.
• Adjust goals for program implementation. Case managers had difficulty following a caseload of 25 youth, and staff consistently recommended increasing the length of services from six months to at least the length of a school year. Building rapport takes time, and youth might benefit from a more intensive course of services.
• Invest in case management software. Ideally, this software would allow tracking youth across services, documenting the types of services received, and entering detailed case notes. This type of system would also allow case managers to more easily track participants' progress over time.
• Ensure private spaces for case management sessions. Case managers should be provided with the infrastructure to ensure a private place to meet with youth, or guidance should be provided to case managers for what to do when a private space is unavailable.
• Provide training resources for program staff, especially case managers. Training resources were inconsistent across Clubs, and it would be beneficial to provide a consolidated, modular training course that provides guidance to case managers as they navigate challenges with the youth they serve.
• Explore differences in implementation by Club. If the program continues, BGC should study implementation differences across its Clubs and establish consistent standards to ensure equitable access and outcomes for all youth.

We also identified a set of recommendations to lay the foundation for future evaluations:

• Strengthen the program's theory of change and logic model. There might be certain aspects to Peaceful Connections programming that are more directly linked to the goal of addressing risk factors for violence than others. BGC could determine how its existing programming addresses the specific risk factors that it aims to target and then create more-structured recommendations for youth participation.
• Revisit the intake and outgoing assessments. Given the low internal consistency for certain subscales, BGC could consider replacing the intake assessment with a fully validated scale, such as the Gang Reduction and Youth Development Youth Services Eligibility Tool (Hennigan et al., 2014).
• Improve processes for collecting outcome data. Some efforts could be low-burden to implement, such as having case managers track the goals they worked on and when a goal was fully accomplished. To increase the number of youth completing the outgoing assessment, the program could consider doing interim assessments (e.g., every three to six months) or giving youth multiple methods to complete the assessment.