Bridging Campus to Community in the Lives of Urban Children and Youth: Introduction to the Special Issue

This special issue brings together papers presented at a conference, “Promoting the Well-Being of Children and Youth in Urban America,” held on the campus of Wayne State University in April 2004. These articles highlight multidisciplinary, multi-method research and research-in-context directed toward identifying protective and risky settings for children and youth in urban communities to suggest evidence-based solutions for intervention. Present in the themes of the papers is an acknowledgment of a larger social and political context connecting higher education, research, outreach, and policy. These issues will be explored further in the second biennial national children’s conference held at Wayne State University, “Promoting the Well-Being of Children and Youth in Urban America: Best Practices to Next Practices,” on September 28 and 29, 2006. This event will bring together researchers, clinicians, educators, students, policy makers, and community representatives to focus on best practices for promoting the health, education, and development of urban children and on disseminating program models for next practices

Violence Exposure, IQ, Academic Performance, and Children’s Perception of Safety: Evidence of Protective Effects

Community violence exposure (CVE), a critical urban problem, is associated with negative academic outcomes. Children who report feeling safe, however, may perform better than those who do not. The purpose of this study was to examine the relations among CVE, feelings of safety, and cognitive outcomes among 6- and 7-year-olds born to women receiving prenatal care at an innercity maternity hospital who participated in a prospective pregnancy study. In addition to obtaining measures of child CVE, IQ, reading, standardized school achievement, and grades, we also evaluated the primary caregiver in order to assess the home and family environment. Greater violence exposure and victimization were related to poorer child outcomes; however, feelings of safety were positively related to most of the cognitive measures, and positive caregiving was related to more optimal cognitive functioning. Increased feelings of safety may allow children to focus on critical school tasks to which they may otherwise be unable to attend