Federal Resources

This sourcebook looks at the effectiveness of four types of violence prevention strategies: parents and family-based; home visiting; social-cognitive; and mentoring. The sourcebook documents the science behind each best practice and offers a comprehensive directory of resources for more information about programs that have used these practices.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) works to protect public health and safety by providing information to enhance health decisions, and it promotes health through partnerships with state health departments and other organizations.

Schools and education agencies cannot prevent natural disasters, or even many man-made crises, but they can help students prepare for and plan to respond to such emergencies. Resources are available to help schools, education agencies, and institutions of higher education develop such plans, usually in collaboration with public health and first responder agencies.

CDC’s Violence Prevention site provides a wide variety of materials that can help professionals understand violence and stop it before it starts.

Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Student (WSCC),  is recommended by CDC as a strategy for improving students' health and learning in our nation’s schools. These site outline the rationale and goals for WSCC, provide a model framework for planning and implementing WSCC, and offer resources to help schools, districts, and states improve their school health programs.

Principles of Prevention is a free, online violence prevention training, available on the CDC’s VetoViolence website. This dynamic and interactive course teaches the key concepts of primary prevention, the public health approach, and the social-ecological model. It also features interviews with leading experts and compelling stories, helps professionals to understand the fundamentals of effective violence prevention, and helps them to become familiar with the growing body of research on what works.

This Web site provides information on and links to school health strategies, research and evaluation tools, Youth Risk Behavior Survey data, evidence-based guidelines for school health programs, and adolescent and school health program resources and tools.

The Guide to Community Preventive Services is a free resource listing programs and policies that improve health and prevent disease.  The Program Planning Resources section of the site outlines the types of steps that are generally used in program planning, along with selected resources that may be useful at each step.

This resource from the CDC provides articles and other resources for parents and educators dealing with H1N1.

Information from the CDC on the topics of injury and violence prevention, including topic areas, publications, and other resources.

In this article, two experts from CDC discuss a project they conducted in Haiti where they distributed handheld solar lights to women and girls in an effort to increase their sense of safety when leaving their homes to use latrines at night. The researchers also describe the implications of their findings for preventing and reducing violence against women in humanitarian settings. 

This infographic presents information about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and how they affect behavior and health.

This compendium provides research and prevention specialists with a set of tools to evaluate programs to prevent youth violence. The compendium includes more than 100 measures, mostly focused on individuals' violence-related attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.

As the Nation's principal health statistics agency, this site compiles statistical information to guide actions and policies to improve the health of our people.

Youth violence can be prevented. This strategy provides a framework for action.

This report describes the critical problem of youth violence and provides information and action steps that public health and community leaders, young people, families, caregivers, and other adults that work with youth can take to prevent it. 

CDC has launched the redesigned VetoViolence website. The site features interactive and engaging evidence- and practice-based tools, trainings, and resources to help stop violence before it starts.

Habits and practices related to health and safety are influenced by the entire school environment. Schools can use this self-assessment and planning tool to improve their health and safety policies and programs. The SHI has eight different modules including School Health and Safety Policies and Environment; Counseling, Psychological, and Social Services; and Family and Community Involvement.

These documents were designed to provide information for planning and conducting school-located 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccination clinics that target school-aged children enrolled in school and potentially other groups in the community. The page also includes a link to CDC's seasonal flu information. 

“Sexual Violence Surveillance: Uniform Definitions and Recommended Data Elements” includes the latest information available for standardizing sexual violence surveillance definitions and data elements. The use of common terminology and data elements can promote higher quality and timely incidence and prevalence data.

This Centers for Disease Control and Prevention created suicide prevention resources developed from federal and local partnerships. The site contains information about a national strategy for suicide prevention, data and trends, and youth-specific information. 

The report indicates that school-based physical activity may help improve students' grades and test scores and positively affect other factors that influence academic achievement. The report also concludes that adding time during the school day for physical activity does not appear to take away from academic performance.

This report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the total lifetime estimated financial costs associated with just one year of confirmed cases of child maltreatment is approximately $124 billion.

A national initiative to prevent youth violence before it starts. STRYVE's vision is safe and healthy youth who can achieve their full potential as connected and contributing members of thriving, violence-free families, schools, and communities. Their website includes training materials focused on understanding youth violence, the public health approach, and creating a plan along with a wealth of other resources and information.

Data from CDC's National Vital Statistics System for 2006 and 2007 show that rates of firearm homicide were generally higher among residents of the nation's largest metropolitan areas than for the U.S. overall, with rates for central cities often among the highest. Rates of firearm homicide among youth 10-19 years old often exceeded rates for residents of all ages in these areas. In contrast, firearm suicides often occurred at lower rates among residents in the nation's largest metropolitan areas and central cities than for the nation overall. There are a number of effective strategies for prevention, which include programs that enhance youth skills and motivation to behave nonviolently and resolve conflicts peacefully; promote positive relationships between youth and adults; and influence the social, environmental, and economic characteristics of neighborhoods in ways that could be implemented more broadly in U.S. cities to reduce the likelihood of youth violence.