Violence Prevention In American Youths

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the prevention of violence and injury in American Youth. Youth is probably one of the most beautiful periods in life. It presents the great opportunity of self-discovery, exploring but not limited to the individual’s abilities’ strength, talents and gifts. It is paramount that at this period, young people should be challenge to maximize their potential, demonstrate their greatness and explore capacity building for great leadership.

At this period, when not properly cultivated, it predisposes youth to injury and violence. We will explore various methodology that will help prevent and or minimize the prevalence/occurrence of injury and violence in youth as it relate to bullying, peer pressure with emphasis on early child exposure to illicit drug use and uneven distribution of educational, social and financial opportunities(poverty) which are highly essential for health care promotion.

Violence

The health and safety of the youth is at risk in the United States due to violence. The next generation is at risk due to homicides occurring at an alarming rate. Youth violence is the intentional physical force or power to threaten or harm others, when pertaining to youth violence it results in people between the ages of 10 and 24 (Center of Disease Control, 2019). The effects of youth violence go beyond premature death; youth violence can contribute physical, emotional, and academic scars. The effects don’t stop there when the opportunities of the youth are being stolen from them it can lead to negative and long-lasting consequences for the nation as a whole. There is a solution that involves the community coming together to help reduce youth violence.

There are multiple factors that prompted to the high prevalence of youth violence in communities today. They can fluctuate from individual to even community problems that contribute. These are known as the risk factors but there are also protective factors that focus on the influences that cause disparities in youth brutality. For a larger reduction to occur the focus must be on counteracting both risk factors and protective factors. It is imperative to keep in mind that not everyone exposed to risk factor are susceptible to youth violence due to its complexity and accumulation over time (Center of Disease Control, 2019).

In order to develop preventive services correlated with decreasing risk factors and building protective factors, one has to have the knowledge of both risk and protective factors (Bolton, 2017). Some risk and protective factors are:

1. Neighborhood disadvantage and poverty, exposure to community violence, and disorganized neighborhoods. Protective factor to counter this will be Nonviolent and nondeprived neighborhood (Bolton, 2017).
2. Poor academic achievement, low academic aspirations, poorly organized and functioning schools, low school connectedness. School achievement, High education aspirations, positive school and classmate are protective factors (Bolton, 2017).
3. Deviant peers and rejection by peers. Low peer delinquency/nondeviant peers (Bolton, 2017).
4. Maltreatment, parental antisocial and delinquent behavior, family member’s carelessness in allowing access to weapons. Close relationship to at least one parent, Parental disapproval of aggressive behavior. Good family management or parent supervision (Bolton, 2017).
5. Low intelligence and antisocial behavior. High intelligence female gender, low level of attention problems or hyperactivity and negative attitude toward delinquency (Bolton, 2017).

For the past two decades the CDC has been focuses on the prevention of youth violence before it starts. Healthy people 2020 also emphasize on health promotion and illness prevention. This can lead to a decrease in youth related problems such as obesity, substance abuse, and academic failure. Youths are frequently the ones hurting other youth on average 13 youth fall victim to homicide (Center of Disease Control, 2019).

For a long period of time youth violence has been on the rise and is not a problem that is going away soon. In order to catalyze the prevention, the CDC has created Preventing Youth Violence: Opportunities for Action to help communities get easy access to available knowledge; the program summaries all the information that is currently known about youth violence as well as programs and activities that can be effective in their community (Center of Disease Control, 2019). This allows the community to be aware of the severity of the issues and strategy’s they can put into place to help increase prevention efforts.

According to the author, for over a decade, the CDC partnered with a number of higher education institutions to create Youth Violence Protection Centers. These institutions are equipped with scientists and programs to advance youth violence prevention initiatives. Currently the YVPC include the John Hopkins University, the University in Chicago/University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Colorado Boulder, University of Michigan, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Virginia Commonwealth University. These universities work with communities that are affected by high levels of youth violence. Through collaboration with local agencies, the YVPCs seek to implement and evaluate a set of strategies to improve violence prevention within their respective communities.

It is imperative to stress that importance of early prevention. Altering behaviors that are deeply established has a lower success rate than the development of healthy behaviors at a younger age. Here are some prevention strategies that can be implemented into communities. Build adolescent and children knowledge, skills, and motivation to choose nonviolent and safe behaviors; this requires the development of protective factors and conflict resolution strategies (Center of Disease Control, 2019). Fostering of a stable and nurturing relationship between parents/caregivers; youth violence can be increased due to the home environment such as family violence, abuse, and inconsistent discipline. Within the community build and maintain positive relationship between youth and adults; this can provide informal guidance and monitoring. Improve the environment safety creating a space that allows the growth of creativity and strong social relationships (Center of Disease Control, 2019).

As nurses we play a vital role in injuries and violence prevention in youths in America. We interact with these youths and their families in every aspect of our job. Nurses work in hospitals, clinics, Dr. Offices, community health centers and schools etc. We have a great responsibility to promote violence prevention through teaching, providing resources and to create awareness. We can achieve this by the following means: assessing for victims and providing support and care to these victims, encouraging nurturing, safe and stable families’ relationship, accessing for substance abuse/use, boosting suicide prevention, continuous violence screening in clinics, emergency rooms, hospitals, Dr. Offices and community health centers, and reducing access to knives, pesticides and guns. Violence is a serious health hazard that should be the concern of everyone.

Conclusion

Youth violence is the intentional physical force or power to threaten or harm others, when pertaining to youth violence it results in people between the ages of 10 and 24 (Center of Disease Control, 2019). Youth violence can be prevented before it starts. There are lots of preventive factors that can be put in place. The CDC has collaborated with universities and organizations to put prevention strategies in place to prevent violence before it even begins. Healthy people 2020 objective is to improve the health of all Americans by the year 2020.