July 2002

As an Oakland middle school principal and teacher, respectively, Jo Ann Lougin and Christian Hinz are up on the lingo of young teenagers. These days, the two are hearing words coming out of these kids' mouths that they didn't hear a year ago. Words like "empathy." And "character."

Lougin, of Madison Middle School, and Hinz, of Carter Middle School, are working to implement an effective violence prevention curriculum in their schools. Oakland's Safe Passages provides funding for the training and material for this curriculum, called Second Step, a nationally renowned curriculum that gives tools to help every student learn the social and emotional skills to be empathetic, less impulsive and better able to solve problems and manage anger.

Statistics show that working at the middle school level is key to Safe Passages' overall goal of reducing youth violence in Oakland. Although middle schoolers account for only 20 percent of all Oakland students, nearly 60 percent of suspensions for violence occur in middle school. Suspensions from school are a risk factor for future criminal behavior, and in Oakland about 500 kids ages 12-14 are arrested annually and the average age of a youth in the probation system is only 14.5 years old.

Madison and Carter are among the seven Oakland middle schools that are teaching the Second Step curriculum. Safe Passages is now making these schools safer environments for kids by providing the resources for training and materials.

Although the hard data is not yet in from the schools that have recently completed their first year of implementing Second Step, Lougin and Hinz believe that the effort is already making a difference.

"I was using up to 40 percent of instruction time dealing with behavior and disruption issues," says Hinz. "The violence prevention curriculum, in addition to greater experience in general on my part, has made a noticeable difference to me with regard to the amount of time I have to spend on disruption. Emotions will erupt; conflict is inevitable. The point is not to get rid of conflict, it's to deal with it, help kids be open-minded and see that conflict can be handled non-violently. Teens don't want to be seen as a 'punk' by backing down. But if they can respond in a way that's not soft but not violent, conflicts can end. I've seen kids do it."

At Madison, Principal Lougin carved out time in the schedule for the curriculum. Every Wednesday during the school year kids and teachers work on the curriculum after lunch - all kids, all at once. Lougin says that behavior improvements this year were most noticeable in the sixth graders. "Their behavior is not as ingrained as is the case with seventh and eight graders. Plus, since sixth graders are new to the school, the curriculum seemed natural, and it will be even more so for them as they become seventh and eighth graders. We already hear the terminology being used among the kids."

Both Lougin and Hinz believe it will take time to build a culture within their schools that violence is taken seriously and appreciate that it will take a few years for the curriculum to have maximum impact, particularly when the future eighth graders will have been exposed to the curriculum since their entry into middle school. "Too many things need immediate results, but this takes time," says Hinz. "We have to build a culture within the school that there are alternatives to violence. New kids will walk into that culture and not question it."

The violence prevention curriculum is one component of Safe Passages' middle school strategy, which also includes creating alternatives to suspensions and creating more after-school opportunities. Also, the middle school strategy includes providing on-campus specialists who are trained to evaluate student's behavior, engage the advice and support of parents/caregivers and teachers, and develop an individualized plan with a mix of activities and services as needed to steer the student back on track. In addition to its middle school strategy, Safe Passages also pursues an early childhood strategy to break the link between early exposure to violence and later perpetration of or victimization by violence, and a strategy of individualized supports and appropriate sanctions for moderate and high risk repeat offenders.

For more information about Safe Passages on this website, click here. For more information on this website on youth violence prevention, click here. To visit the Second Step website, click here.