New Orleans Youth Equity Collaborative: As Research Practice Partnership to Reduce Youth Firearm Violence

Tulane University’s Violence Prevention Institution in the School of Public Health will partner with the Center for Restorative Approaches and New Orleans Public Schools and the Orleans Parish School Board to address the disproportionate impact of firearm violence on Black youth. They will use an implementation science approach to evaluate the New Orleans Violence Interruption Program, which is being implemented in New Orleans public schools by the Center for Restorative Approaches. They will use a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to identify the relevant health and social outcomes of the intervention; identify facilitators and barriers to the adoption of the program; and use a co-design research process to refine the program to enable its scaling up in a sustainable way. The partnership will enhance the capacity of the Center for Restorative Approaches to conduct and use implementation and evaluation data to refine programming, seek additional funding, and improve outcomes for young people affected by firearm violence. To achieve institutional change, the Tulane leads will seek policy changes at the departmental level to create more time for faculty to engage in partnership research. They will also work with leadership at the School of Public Health to develop school-wide policies to support partnership work, including changes to tenure and promotion.