The Tulane University Violence Prevention Institute (VPI), in partnership with Brothers at Peace, the City of New Orleans Office of Gun Violence Prevention, Daughters Beyond Incarceration, the New Orleans Children and Youth Planning Board, the Institute of Women and Ethnic Studies, and University Medical Center, is excited to announce the receipt of a grant (#U01 CE003384) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to establish a youth violence prevention research center within the VPI—the Center for Youth Equity (CYE). This is the first CDC-funded Prevention Research Center in the Gulf South explicitly focused on the prevention of youth exposure to violence and one of only 5 in the United States.
The CYE is established as a culturally responsive research center embedded within the ongoing community partnerships and existing infrastructure of the VPI to build and strengthen the network for research and practice on the prevention of youth exposure to violence in New Orleans and across the Gulf South.
Along with essential involvement and leadership from our partner organizations and core VPI staff, Tim Craft and Hannah Gilbert, components of the CYE include a research core directed by Dr. Julia Fleckman; two distinct research projects aimed at prevention of youth exposure to violence (Principal Investigators Drs. Samantha Francois and Julia Fleckman); a training and education core including activities for students, faculty, community partners, and youth directed by Dr. Stacy Drury; and an outreach and dissemination core aimed at increasing translation of research to policy and practice directed by Dr. Samantha Francois. The Center will also include an administrative core directed by co-PIs Dr. Katherine Theall and Joseph Constans, as well as a youth advisory council and external advisory board.
Tulane and its partners are thrilled to be a part of this national network and to add to all of ongoing work around the prevention of youth exposure to violence and efforts to change the inequities in youth exposure to violence.
