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Description
Background: Modern juvenile justice research increasingly identifies family violence as a primary driver of youth legal and social transgressions. To address this, the Strickland Youth Detention Center, in partnership with the USA Health Center for Healthy Communities, launched the Building Safer Communities Collaborative (BSCC)in Mobile, Alabama, in September 2025. This pilot program employs a public health, trauma-informed prevention model to intervene before youth face serious tenure within the justice system.
Methods: The BSCC utilizes a Community Health Worker (CHW) model focusing on 37 youth currently on informal probation. Over a six-month period, the program facilitates twice-monthly encounters with youth and parents. Methodology includes restorative practice tools, pro-social modeling, and comprehensive screenings—including Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), family cohesion surveys, and caregiver assessments—to identify "trauma of lack" and recurrent conflict patterns such as verbal/physical rejection and normalized violent outbursts.
Results: Preliminary case notes and self-disclosed screenings reveal that environmental stressors and systemic trauma predispose both parents and youth to negative physicality as a conflict resolution tool. However, the integration of assigned CHWs for life coaching and reflective restorative practices has broadened the pro-social support network for participants. Initial data indicates a marked improvement in family dynamics and successful deterrence of repeat violent offenses among the majority of participants during the study period.
Conclusion: The BSCC intervention demonstrates that leveraging CHWs to provide trauma-informed, community-centered support can effectively mitigate the risk of recidivism and re-traumatization. By fostering individual accountability, societal growth, and community service, the program offers a scalable alternative to traditional punitive measures in juvenile justice as well as improving community and family capacity for resilience.
Publication Date
11-3-2026
Keywords
Community Health Worker, Justice Impacted Youth, Family Violence
Disciplines
Public Health
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Francis-Sheaerer, Antonette PhD; Singleton, Amber; Shaw, Denise; Echols, Kierra; Parker, L. Lynette; Dodson, Caroline O.; and Williams, Ashley Y. MD, "Trauma informed care approach to family violence : Preliminary insights of a pilot youth justice violence prevention program" (2026). Community Health Workers Posters. 1.
https://jagworks.southalabama.edu/chc-posters-commhealthwork/1
Comments
Presentation at APHA 2026 Annual Meeting & Expo. Tuesday, November 3, 2026