YEAH Philly Violent Crime Initiative Year One Process Evaluation

From the executive summary:

“YEAH (Youth Empowerment for Advancement Hangout) is a community-based organization working to empower, advocate for, and meet the needs of young people ages 15 to 24 based in West and Southwest Philadelphia. Kendra Van de Water and James Aye co-founded YEAH in 2018 to address the stark lack of safe, culturally supportive, and fun spaces for teenagers and young adults in Philadelphia. YEAH sought to address the root causes of violence by direct investments in the community and young people, and by providing safe and culturally relevant spaces for Black youth.

The Violent Crime Initiative (VCI), which began to serve young people in late 2020, is a core program of YEAH. The VCI’s work focuses on providing tenacious court advocacy and holistic, individualized case management to young people, ages 15 to 24, who are from West or Southwest Philadelphia and have been charged with a violent or gun crime in the juvenile or adult legal system. The main individual-level goals articulated by the VCI founders are to (1) assist young people in exiting out of the legal system and (2) support them to become self-sufficient. The organization’s staff of case managers, legal experts, program/service coordinators and others provide extensive support and financial assistance to meet the diverse needs of participants.

This document is a summary of a longer Year 1 Process Evaluation Report that provides a detailed overview of YEAH’s VCI, highlighting its mission and approach. Funded by The Neubauer Family Foundation (NFF), researchers in Temple University’s Department of Criminal Justice conducted a community-based participatory process evaluation to help provide an independent analysis of VCI successes and outcomes.”