Preventing violence: Lessons from Chicago

• Minimizing the effects of trauma by cultivating learned helpfulness out of learned helplessness (a.k.a., mastery), thus generating hope.

The beauty of the principles is that many different activities can accomplish the outcomes the principles strive to achieve. For example, organizing a community soccer program can establish relationships among neighbors so they can all raise one another’s children; Little League baseball can teach youth social and emotional skills as they learn to play baseball with respect and emotional regulation; math clubs can provide a source for self-esteem; and religious activities or a church-sponsored garden can change the helplessness of hunger into the helpfulness of growing your own food.

The principles are focused enough to be "directionally correct," but flexible enough to accommodate differing neighborhoods, cultures, and resources within a community. These are strength-based approaches that not only reduce violence but also reduce risky sexual behaviors, the likelihood of drug use, decrease teen pregnancy, encourage successful school performance.

Although the science was less precise, if you examine what Jane Addams and her colleagues did to reduce violence and delinquency a hundred years ago and examine what we were able to do using the seven field principles developed from solid research methodology in the Chicago Public Schools, it becomes clear that the principles are the same. By using these principles and actualizing them, we were able to reduce violence in Chicago Public Schools by about 50% and decrease child abuse in Illinois. These strategies are tried and true – they worked before, and they can work again.

Where is Jane Addams when we need her?

Dr. Bell is professor of public health and director of the Institute for Juvenile Research in the department of psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago.