The Virginia Best Practices in School-Based Youth Violence Prevention Project is funded by the Center for Injury and Violence Prevention of the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) and conducted by the VCU Center for the Study and Prevention of Youth Violence (CSPYV) in collaboration with the Virginia Department of Education. The project is designed to foster the use of best practices in youth violence prevention in Virginia schools.

The vision of the Center for Injury and Violence Prevention (CIVP) is for Virginia to be a place where people live, learn and play safely. Parents, educators, health providers, and others can actively participate in raising awareness and enhancing skills to prevent injury and violence in their communities. CIVP’s strategies for prevention include research and assessment, policy development, training and community education, promotion and dissemination of safety devices, public information and funding of local projects.

The VCU Center for the Study and Prevention of Youth Violence is dedicated to the promotion of culturally sensitive strategies that effectively interrupt the cycle of violence, contribute to healing, and create safe environments where youth and families can grow and thrive, free of violence. The funding that the Center receives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as one of ten National Academic Centers of Excellence on Youth Violence Prevention is directed solely toward projects that serve the Richmond area.

This project enables the CSPYV to apply its expertise to support the use of science-based best practices in youth violence prevention throughout Virginia.

A number of national sources have in recent years compiled and distributed lists of science-based best practice programs in youth violence prevention. Designation on any of these established lists is sufficient to enable school divisions to use VDOE Safe and Drug-Free Schools funds to support these science-based programs.

However, no comprehensive source currently existed to enable Virginia schools to easily locate programs that meet their needs, regardless of the particular source of best practice designation. There was also no easy way for Virginia schools to locate information concerning which Virginia school divisions currently implement any particular best practice program.

Current areas of project activity:

1. Compile a comprehensive database of school-based violence prevention programs that have been acknowledged by national sources as having demonstrated effectiveness.
   
   
2. Catalogue and report on the use of school based violence prevention programs (SBVPP) in the Virginia schools, distinguishing the use of designated “best practice” programs from the use of programs that do not have this designation.
   
   
3. Develop and launch a user-friendly web site that will enable schools to easily access information on “best practice” school-based youth violence prevention programs and how they are being used in Virginia schools.