Just Trying to Be Better Than it Was: An Evaluation of the Newark Community Solutions Youth Empowerment and Resiliency Project

Report Overview

Youth in Newark, New Jersey, are exposed to community violence at twice the rate of the U.S. national average. Exposure to community violence has wide-ranging impacts on adolescent development, including behavioral and mental health challenges and increased risk of involvement in the criminal legal system long into adulthood.

In response to this public health crisis, Newark Community Solutions (NCS) developed and piloted the Youth Empowerment and Resiliency Project (NCS-YERP), a program designed to address the complex needs of violence-exposed and system-impacted youth. NCS-YERP combined intensive case management, trauma-informed care, and novel interventions like virtual reality assisted adventure therapy (VRAAT). Additionally, NCS-YERP was designed with an emphasis on building capacity among various community partners both within and without the juvenile justice system. During program lifetime, NCS worked with 38 system-impacted and violence-exposed youth.

This evaluation of the program found that it was most effective at strengthening youths’ social-emotional protective factors (i.e., self-esteem, social competencies, and reduction of traumatic stress symptoms), but was less effective at strengthening environmental and relational protective factors, such as parent-caregiver relationships and school engagement. Additionally, while low rates of participant engagement were a barrier to program success, the use of VRAAT showed promising effects as an adjunctive intervention to support the development and strengthening of social-emotional protective factors.