The first step, in 2008, was the offering of a youth violence prevention training program. The 6-hour session for agency staff members introduced them to the Charlie Check-First curriculum covering anti-bullying, personal safety, and self-esteem. This curriculum includes activities, songs, workbooks for children and materials to work with parents.

Charlie Check-First teaches children from kindergarten through fifth grade not to go anywhere with anyone without checking first – focusing on lures, safety person/safety house, home alone skills, emergencies, observation skills, the buddy system, and the power to say "No" in the face of pressures, dares, guns, drugs, strangers, and inappropriate touching. The curriculum also engages parents on issues of safely and awareness.

KC Koala teaches children to be kind and caring – with a focus on self-esteem and tolerance, conflict resolution, and bullying.

Funding for this program came from the Roy A. Hunt Foundation.

When children and youth become homeless it is often due to extreme issues such as family violence, severe poverty, a parent's addiction or mental illness, and unfortunate disasters. In the face of this turmoil and uncertainty in their lives, the kids often experience confusion, frustration, and replication of violent behavior they have seen or experienced. When this occurs there is a critical need for immediate intervention.

In 2006 and 2007 HCEF conducted a needs assessment among its 17 homeless housing partners. 99% of staff noted that violent behavior presented a significant issue in their children and youth programs. Further, they could site documented cases of homeless children being suspended and expelled from school due to violent behavior.

HCEF has purchased the research-based PATHS program (Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies) – a "social and emotional learning program for children in grades K-6" developed by Mark Greenberg and Carol Kusche of Penn State University's Prevention Research Center. Available through Channing Bete Company, the program is described on the company website as follows:

"Even when children know what to do when conflicts arise, getting them to follow through in the heat of the moment can be a challenge. But the PATHS program, grounded in brain development research, helps turn knowledge into action. Clinical studies have found the PATHS program to significantly:

• reduce teachers' reports of students exhibiting aggressive behavior
• increase teachers' reports of students exhibiting self-control
• improve students' ability to tolerate frustration plus their ability – and willingness – to use effective conflict-resolution strategies
• decrease conduct problems and the percentage of aggressive/violent solutions to social problems."

(5/22/09)

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