Laura Voith, PhD, assistant professor and faculty affiliate of the Center on Trauma and Adversity, and Meghan Salas Atwell, PhD, senior research associate at the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development, were recently awarded a grant by the (NICHD) for their project, "Identifying the causal mechanisms of a hospital-based violence intervention program."
Furthermore, studies of HVIPs are primarily risk-focused with little understanding of promotive factors such as resilience.
Voith and Salas Atwell's study will lay a strong foundation for future violence intervention research by integrating rich retrospective and prospective social service data, hospital records, and clinical program data that will illuminate key developmental needs of this high-risk population and potential ameliorating factors grounded in theory.
Their objective is to identify the causal mechanisms of a hospital-based violence intervention program in Cleveland, Ohio. They will examine these potential causal mechanisms (i.e., adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), resilience, and post-traumatic growth) with enrolled youth and test program effects on long-term outcomes (i.e., reinjury, juvenile justice involvement, and academic success) using a matched comparison group.
To help Voith prepare the proposal, she participated in the Grants Academy, a program offered by ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ to assist faculty in developing their grant-writing skills.