Youth ALIVE!

CLOSING THE REVOLVING DOOR OF VIOLENCE

Youth ALIVE!’s CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE program hires young adults who have overcome violence in their own lives to work with youth who are hospitalized due to violent injuries. The purpose is to reduce retaliation, re-injury, and arrest and promote positive alternatives to violence.

Without intervention, hospitals discharge these patients to the same violent environment where they were injured, with no “prescription” for how to stay safe, and with great pressures to get revenge. Too often, this results in a “revolving door” of violence: after youth are injured and hospitalized, they and their friends often retaliate, causing even more injuries or death, arrest, and incarceration.

One violent act leads to another . . . and another. . . and another. The violent cycle continues.

CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE Stops That Cycle.

Without a CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE staff member there, your family and friends think healing means retaliation. They stand by your bed and make a plan to go get the guy who put you in here to show how much they respect you.

Sherman Spears, founder, CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE

The staff members, or “Intervention Specialists,” have grown up in communities which are the same or similar to the young people they work with. Many have survived violence themselves. The Specialists act as case managers and mentors, working closely with the youth and their families to help them avoid violence and thrive.

My CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE case worker was the first person who made me realize that my life is worth saving….

17 year-old CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE hospital client

HOW CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE
WORKS WITH THE HOSPITALIZED YOUTH

As soon as a young person is admitted into the hospital with a violence-related injury, hospital staff call in the Intervention Specialist, who arrives within one hour at the hospital room, helping the injured patient and his/her families and friends to cope with the injury and to start talking about alternatives to retaliation.

At these initial bedside visits, the Intervention Specialist focuses on developing a trusting relationship with the patient, providing comfort and emotional support, working to prevent immediate and future retaliation, promoting alternative strategies for dealing with conflicts, identifying the youth's short-term needs, and developing a plan for staying safe.

After The Hospital

After the young person leaves the hospital, the Intervention Specialist continues to foster a relationship, easing the youth’s transition back into the community through personal and telephone follow-up contact. The Specialist provides support and mentoring to the youth, as well as to his/her family, through intensive case management.

The CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE Specialist provides a continuum of care for as long as the young person desires, typically for six months to one year, contacting the young person at least once a week.

How The Youth Are Helped

The Intervention Specialist coordinates assistance from social services providers; probation officers; school teachers, administrators, and guidance counselors; hospital medical social workers; and other youth service professionals. This results in a network of wrap-around aid to the teenager.

The Intervention Specialist, on an ongoing basis, links the young person and his/her family and friends with local resources that meet participants' basic needs and promote healthy, nonviolent lifestyles, such as:

medical coverage and follow-up care
educational programs
job training programs
employment opportunities
counseling
life skills training
legal assistance
recreational programs

Youth participants have re-enrolled in school, received mental health counseling and job training, secured part-time and full-time employment, and found relief from crisis situations involving housing, food, transportation and health care.

RESULTS: IT WORKS!

Over 1,000 Oakland youth have been helped by CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE since 1994.

A one-year snapshot of CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE youth clients showed that during the year after the injury:

98 percent of the youth avoided violent re-injury

Not a single young person retaliated against their assailants

A follow-up study comparing CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE participants with hospitalized youth not in the program, found that one year after the injury, program participants were:

70% less likely to be arrested
60% less likely to have any criminal involvement (placement on probation, violation of probation or arrest)*

See full case-control evaluation study results published in

Journal of Adolescent Health, March 2004, M. Becker et al.

Journal of the American College of Surgeons, November 2007, D. Shibru et al.

Check out our most recent CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE Program Update,
providing information on who the program has reached and what the
program has achieved.

CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE Newsletter, Youth ALIVE!

HOW CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE BEGAN

In 1993, social work and medical staff at Highland Hospital/Alameda County Medical Center in Oakland, CA, became frustrated about treating far too many young victims of violence, then sending them back to their communities with little or no follow-up care, only to see them (or the people who injured them) return with more injuries.

After hearing about the work of Youth ALIVE!, they contacted Deane Calhoun, the agency founder and Executive Director, who suggested that TEENS ON TARGET members collaborate with Highland Hospital to provide peer support to the hospitalized youth.

In January of 1994, Sherman Spears, age 24, then Coordinator of TEENS ON TARGET and a victim of gun violence himself, conducted his first CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE bedside visit at Highland Hospital in Oakland, CA.

Sherman Spears, A Founder of CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE

Sherman Spears was disabled by gun violence at age 19, in 1993. As he lay recovering in the hospital, he received no comfort from his friends, who wanted to retaliate in his name, and continue the violence. He felt no comfort from the medical staff, either. He was part of a wave of gun victims flooding urban hospitals whose lifestyle separated them from all but families and “partners.”

He would not speak or listen to the adult strangers -- the healthcare professionals -- who were treating him and was labeled “depressed.” Nonetheless, he started planning what he needed to do when he was discharged -- he was now a paraplegic -- to prevent the unending killing. His doctor and social worker connected him to Youth ALIVE! He joined the staff there and helped to found CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE.

In that position, Mr. Spears advanced programs to promote healthy and safe environments for young people. Through his work in the hospital, he counseled many gang-affiliated youth and survivors of gang-related violence. He worked there for six years.

Today, eight CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE staff members provide case management and peer mentoring services to youth in hospitals in Oakland and Los Angeles, helping them to heal and stay safe.

CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE CATCHES ON!

CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE Expands To Youth On Probation And In School!

CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE expanded from the hospital setting in 1998 to provide similar services to youth who are on probation for violence-related offenses, or are identified as being at high risk for dropout or suspension from school. Initial visits with these youth are typically conducted at the youth's home or school. Once again, the program is effective: the youth on probation who participated in the program had a recidivism rate that was 50% lower than youth who didn't participate in CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE.

CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE Comes To Los Angeles!

In 2004, CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE began work with hospitalized youth in Los Angeles at St. Francis Medical Center. In 2005, the program in Los Angeles expanded to provide services to youth treated at County + USC Medical Center in East Los Angeles.

Within the next four years, CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE-L.A. will reach 350 youth who have been injured by violence in Los Angeles.

CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE Is Replicated In Other Communities!

CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE has been replicated replicated at hospitals throughout Massachusetts, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and in San Francisco, California. If you are interested in starting a program in your community, download a copy of the CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE Peer Intervention Training Manual (PITM):

Download PITM Part I

Download PITM Part II

Download PITM Part III

CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE Wins Awards!

CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE awards and recognition include:

Former Attorney General Janet Reno selected CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE as a model to be replicated throughout the country (1999)
Highland Hospital Department of Medical Social Services recognized CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE for delivery of outstanding services to patients (1999)
The “Spirit of Youth Award” was presented to a CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE staff member by the Coalition for Justice in Washington DC (2000)
Recipient of the Ameritech National Crime Prevention Award of Excellence (1999)
Recipient of the Norman Cousins Award for Outstanding Intervention Services (2001)

CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE Is In The News!

CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE has been featured in local, state and national newspapers, magazines, journals, and on radio and television.

CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE Newsletter, Youth ALIVE!

FIND OUT MORE

If you are interested in learning more about CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE program services or how you can create a program like this in your own community, please call Youth ALIVE! at (510) 594-2588 ext.300 or mail@youthalive.org.

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