Resolving Conflict Creatively Program (New York City)
Problems addressed
Externalizing behaviors/problems
Internalizing behaviors/problems
Socioeconomic vulnerability
Effectiveness

Promising

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Promising

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Life periods served
Children (4 to 13 years)
Teenagers (14 to 17 years)
Where the program was applied
Education establishment
Country of application
United States
Description

This is a universal intervention applied in schools and focused on elementary school students, in order to promote violence prevention and positive social and emotional learning.
The program helps school staff members set up peer mediation activities and offers training workshops for parents. Students learn about active listening, assertiveness, negotiation, and problem-solving through methods such as roleplaying, interviews, small group discussions, and brainstorming.
Classes are organized into skill units, structured in a workshop format, and designed to last from 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Impact evaluations

An impact evaluation showed that the children participating in the program had a statistically significant reduction in aggressive interpersonal negotiation strategies, conduct problems, aggressive or hostile behavior, and a higher level of competent negotiation strategies and prosocial behavior, compared to the children in the control group, who did not receive the intervention. No significant effects were observed in the reduction of depressive symptoms [1].
The study had a short-term longitudinal quasi-experimental design (1994 to 1996), and the evaluation was carried out with teachers and first- and second-grade children from 15 public elementary schools in four New York school districts [1].

Bibliographic reference

[1] Aber, J. L., Brown, J. L. & Jones, S. M. (2003). Developmental trajectories toward violence in middle childhood: Course, demographic differences, and response to school-based intervention. Developmental Psychology, 39(2), 324–348. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.39.2.324

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