YES: Innovative Discussion for Engagement, Achievement, and Service

Conditions

• Violence Prevention

Eligibility Criteria

Sex

ALL

Age

10 Years - 15 Years

Healthy Volunteers

Accepted

Interventions

• YES IDEAS — BEHAVIORAL
  YES IDEAS is an adapted version of the evidence based YES (Youth Empowerment Solutions) program. Through the YES program, youth design and implement their own projects to help improve their own communities. The adapted YES IDEAS curriculum empowers youth from various backgrounds to address bullying and promote positive behaviors as a way to reduce violent behavior. Over the course of the program, youth carry out a community change project aimed at promoting non-violence in their community.

Study Details

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of YES-IDEAS (YES: Innovative Discussion for Engagement, Achievement, and Service)compared to regular after school programming in increasing youth empowerment, promoting positive behaviors, and decreasing youth violence. Through the evidence-based YES (Youth Empowerment Solutions) program, youth design and implement projects to help improve their communities. In the current study, investigators adapted the existing YES curriculum to empower youth from diverse backgrounds to reduce violent behavior. The adapted curriculum, YES-IDEAS, focus on middle school students. The investigators test the effects of YES-IDEAS curriculum on youths' sense of empowerment, attitudes, and violent behavior. They designed the study to be a group-randomized trial in after-school programs across multiple middle schools in south-east Michigan, but issues that arose due to the COVID-19 pandemic and other practical issues with the schools we modified the design to be a matched control group design at the school level. Matching variables included size, geographic locations, race/ethnicity, free/reduced lunch status. Dose-response and sustainability of YES-IDEAS effects are also examined.

Key Dates

Start date

Apr 1, 2022

Status verified

Sep 2025

Primary completion

Nov 29, 2026

Completion

Nov 30, 2026

Study Design

Enrollment

512 participants (estimated)

Allocation

NON_RANDOMIZED

Intervention model

PARALLEL

Primary purpose

PREVENTION

Arms

• Experimental: YES IDEAS
  Students participate in the YES IDEAS program.
• No Intervention: Control
  Students participate in the regular after-school programming.

Primary Outcome Measure

Change in Violence Perpetration [ Time Frame: Baseline (0 months), End of Program (3 months), 6 months, 9 months, 12 months ]

Central Contacts

• Marc A Zimmerman, PhD
  734-647-0224
  [email protected]
• Katherine T Taelman, MAT, MPH
  269-267-5281
  [email protected]

Locations (1)

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