Linda McGlone / Provided
What if we could immunize young people and their neighborhoods against violence, something like the way we do with illnesses like the flu? In fact, it looks like we often can — by treating violence as a public health challenge.
That’s the idea behind a federal program called STRYVE, for Strive to Reduce Youth Violence Everywhere. The Monterey County Health Department is implementing one of the first four STRYVE programs in the country, under the management of Senior Health Educator Linda McGlone.
In the following interview, McGlone gives her thoughts on STRYVE.
QUESTION: What is STRYVE, and how is it different from what we’ve done in the past?
ANSWER: STRYVE was developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to prevent youth violence. The Monterey County Health Department is one of just four health departments in the country awarded a STRYVE grant. The goals of STRYVE are to support strong coalitions like CASP (the Community Alliance for Safety and Peace) and use a public health approach to prevent youth violence. Public health emphasizes prevention — before violence occurs — and uses data to guide the selection of effective strategies.
Public health has successfully reduced other very complex problems like cigarette smoking and drunken driving. This same approach can be applied to violence. The emphasis on the role of prevention comes from the realization that “we can’t arrest our way out of this.”
Q: Why is this approach effective?
A: Looking “upstream” at ways that keep kids out of trouble and out of gangs, in the first place, is easier and less expensive, when compared to the difficulty of changing the attitudes and behaviors of at-risk youth, which requires intensive, long-term programs.
Access to good schools, libraries and recreation centers for all residents keeps neighborhoods strong and able to resist criminal influences like gangs. Leveling the playing field for all residents, regardless of what part of town they live in, is social justice that builds resistance to gang activity, in much the same way that healthy people are resistant to sickness, like the flu.
Q: How has this worked elsewhere?
A: While the STRYVE project is relatively new, the approach used to prevent youth violence is tried and true. San Diego and Los Angeles, as well as smaller cities, such as Chula Vista, have succeeded in lowering their violent crime rates. These cities have recognized the need to prevent youth violence and have invested in prevention, along with intervention and law enforcement.
Q: How will we know when STRYVE is working?
A: Once more and more effective prevention efforts are in place, evaluation will show some changes in as little as one year, such as reduced bullying; as well as long-term changes after about five years, like a significant reduction in violent injuries and death among youth. The important first step is the expansion of current prevention efforts in order to reach these goals.
Q: How does this fit into the overall CASP / For Our Future violence reduction strategy?
A: A successful violence reduction strategy requires a balance of prevention, intervention and law enforcement. By strengthening the city’s [Salinas’] commitment to prevention, fewer youth will require intervention to lower their risk of violence, which will in turn result in fewer violent injuries and deaths.
A young man incarcerated at the county’s Youth Center said it best: “Find out what a kid likes, what he’s good at, and then give him a chance to do that. That way he’ll be too busy to join a gang.” All Salinas youth deserve these opportunities to be successful.
Q: How can people learn more?
A: Anyone who’s interested can learn a lot at the federal STRYVE program website at www.safeyouth.gov.
Organizations that want to enhance or expand their efforts to prevent youth violence can receive technical assistance from the STRYVE Team at the Health Department and gain access to the latest resources from the CDC.
They can reach me at 831- 755-4619.
• Spencer Critchley is a marketing, public relations and digital media consultant who serves with the Community Alliance for Safety & Peace, a group of organizations working to stop gang violence in Salinas and Monterey County.