Education Authority Y Box Doc

CO-PRODUCING A VIOLENCE PREVENTION FRAMEWORK FOR YOUNG MEN

These evaluation insights confirmed that violent adversity was a particular challenge for young men, who were also more likely to perpetrate violence against others. Leveraging pillar 1 (connecting research to practice), QUB conducted a ‘horizon scan’ of the research evidence around youth violence and identified that despite similar observations internationally, there appeared to be a dearth of empirical evidence accounting for these nuances in the Northern Ireland context. Of the wider evidence available, it appeared probable that several factors could help to account for the observations. Firstly, adherence to traditional masculine norms (emotional restrictiveness, endorsement of aggression and inequity) was associated with elevated risk of aggression and violence. Further, the emerging evidence around psychological stress and trauma appeared to show that whilst young women were more likely to screen for clinically diagnosable disorders (e.g., PTSD), young men were more likely to screen for symptom clusters associated with aggression and violence. Combined, the most reliable evidence suggested that the combined effect of masculinity and trauma at least partially explains young men’s everyday engagement in and exposure to violence. Despite this combined effect, high quality reviews assessing the impact of interventions that address masculine norms, or those that focus on the impact of trauma are very limited. Drawing on systematic reviews around the theme of male youth violence, 977 distinct studies have been published . Of these, only six were related to the criminogenic effects of trauma on youth violence, and none of the studies focussed on the role of masculine norms (see table 1). Table 1: Overview of relevant research studies

Building upon the existing evidence base, QUB partnered with EANI in 2021 to co-produce an evidence informed framework for the prevention of male youth violence. The strategic aim of the project was to increase the capacity of EANI youth services to embed research into service design by combining cutting-edge empirical and theoretical evidence alongside practical approaches. The specific aim of the project was for QUB academics and EANI youth workers to coproduce an evidence informed, manualised intervention for engaging young men in the prevention of interpersonal, community based violence. The objectives of the project were: • To facilitate knowledge exchange processes between QUB and EANI • To embed cutting edge research into the development of a specific targeted youth intervention for young men around the theme of violence prevention

Focus on young men

Violence (Victim)

Violence (Perpetrator)

• To develop a theory of change for the violence prevention framework • To enhance practitioners capacity to engage with research evidence • To assess the feasibility and acceptability of the framework

Study

Studies

Masculinity Trauma

Wilson & Rosenhal, 2003 Joliffe & Farrington, 2003

37 35 31

No No No No

Yes

No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No

Yes

No

No

No

Yes Yes

Egan, 2008

Yes Yes

Partially

Fowler et al., 2009

114

Yes

No

Johnson, 2009 Derzon, 2010

25

Partially

No

No No No No

Yes

199

No

Yes Yes

No

Baxendale et al., 2012 Jennings & Reingle, 2012 Jennings et al., 2012 Tfofi et al., 2012 Gerard et al., 2014 Malvaso et al., 2016 Shackleton et al., 2016 Farrington et al., 2017

30

Partially

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

105

No No No No No No No No No No

No

37 42 16 62 11 42 55 18

Yes Yes

Yes

No

No No No

Partially

Yes

No No No

Yes

No

Jolliffe et al., 2017

No

Yes Yes

Fitton, Yu, Fazel, 2018

Yes Yes

Yes Yes

Yule, Houston and Grych 2019

118 977

No

Total 12 Combined, this evidence indicated that there was a need to design, test and evaluate a model of intervention specifically for young men with the aim of understanding the root causes of violence and reducing incidences of violence. 0 10 0 6

10

11