Community Violence Intervention in African American Communities: Resilience and Coping among Outreach Workers

Abstract

African American communities are at risk of negative psychological and physical health problems associated with structural and community violence. Street outreach, a community-based social service violence intervention, can build resilience and coping to buffer against these negative effects. Using qualitative case study, the authors explored the effects of street outreach on the resilience and coping of ten outreach workers in two Southside communities in Chicago. Findings from the thematic analysis indicated individual level factors (such as internal state, perceptions, experiences, and future goals) and system level factors (such as family, work, community, culture, and the broader society) related to the workers’ experiences of community violence, street outreach utilization, and resilience. The authors presented these factors using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems framework. Additionally, the workers’ scores on the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale-10 corroborated the individual level factors but lacked the system factors. The authors concluded that outreach programs could help to build the resilience and coping capacity of workers by implementing workplace policies and procedures that promote mental health, trauma healing, and career advancement. Future studies should include quantitative outcome data to analyze the effects of street outreach programming on workers’ resilience.

Introduction

People living in communities characterized by high rates of community violence (called high violence hereafter) are at risk of a myriad of negative and long-lasting physical and psychological health outcomes (American Public Health Association, 2018). Violence-related injury involves damage to victims, perpetrators, and witnesses of violence that can affect their everyday functioning (Turanovic & Pratt, 2015; Turner et al., 2016). After surveying 1615 adults of four large urban US cities, Smith et al. (2020) found that exposure to gun violence was positively and significantly associated with higher levels of psychological distress, depression, and suicidal ideations. In a systematic review, Motley et al. (2017) found a significant association between community violence and substance use among Black males. Community violence disproportionately affects ethnic minorities such as African Americans (AAs; American Public Health Association, 2018; Kegler et al., 2022) and thus they are more vulnerable to poor health outcomes.

Mechanisms of structural violence are also linked to poor health outcomes in ethnic minorities affected by community violence. Structural violence refers to harm caused by social structures and institutions due to discriminatory and unjust practices and policies (Lee, 2019). Disinvestment in social services, economic deprivation, and discriminatory police practices are some structural violence mechanisms that contribute to the devastating levels of violence and ultimately poor health outcomes in ethnic minority communities (Office of Illinois Comptroller, 2018; Office of Mayor, 2020; McCrea et al., 2019). For example, Desmond et al. (2016) found that police violence against an unarmed Black man was associated with a total net loss of around 22,200 calls for 911 service over one year in most of Milwaukee’s Black communities, which could affect their personal and public safety.

Chicago experiences devastating levels of community violence that disproportionately affect AA communities. These neighborhoods are located on the south and west sides of Chicago where poverty, poor health outcomes, and shorter life expectancy are concentrated (Office of the Mayor, 2020). In 2021 and 2022, the two Chicago Southside communities in this study had over 91% AA residents (Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning Community [CMAP], 2022a, 2022b) and were among eight out of 77 communities with the highest rate of violent crime victims (over 300) per 10,000 residents (City of Chicago Violence Reduction Dashboard, n.d.). According to the CMAP (2022a, 2022b), 44–52% of households in each of these communities have an annual income less than 25,000 US dollars compared to 22.9% in the city of Chicago.

Street violence outreach is a community-based intervention to reduce the risk of violence. In the US, violence intervention programs are becoming increasingly popular, with 40 states having funding dedicated to community violence intervention programs (Everytown Research & Policy, 2023). These programs use strategies such as conflict mediation, personal goal planning (i.e. employment, education, mental health, and substance use treatment goals), and case management. The outreach workers are a key component of street outreach social service programs. They are from the communities where they work and are often considered high-risk individuals and thus as vulnerable to the negative effects of violence as the program participants. Violence prevention and intervention programming has a dual focus: reducing risk factors and building protective factors (Aisenberg & Herrenkohl, 2008). Resilience and adaptive coping strategies are possible factors that protect people from the negative effects of violence. Although previous studies have examined street outreach workers’ exposure to primary and secondary trauma and their need for greater support, studies have not examined the resilience or coping mechanisms they use to counter the effects of their work experiences. This study explored the experiences of resilience and coping among street outreach workers living and working in two predominately African American communities with high violence located on the Southside of Chicago.

Community Violence associated with the Mechanisms of Structural Violence

Violence affects everyone because of its contagious nature. However, certain groups of people are more vulnerable and thus at higher risk of negative and lifelong consequences. Black people face disproportionate rates of homicides in the US. In this manuscript, Black and AAs are used synonymously for simplicity but it is understood that ethnic groups are heterogeneous in nature. Communities with concentrated poverty and low socioeconomic status are at a higher risk for violent crimes than those with higher socioeconomic status (Frazer et al., 2017; Kang, 2016; Sackett, 2016). Fifteen of Chicago’s 77 communities, mostly located on the south and west side, have only 24% of the city’s population but contributed 63% of the total homicides and non-fatal shootings from 2018 to 2020 (City of Chicago Violence Reduction Dashboard, n.d.). The communities are predominately Latinx and AAs (Office of the Mayor, 2020).

Chicago’s high levels of violence, especially since 2016 (City of Chicago Violence Reduction Dashboard, n.d.), coincides with the state’s budget impasse from 2015 to 2017 and subsequent budget deficit, affecting many social service programs that serve mostly vulnerable AA communities (Office of Illinois Comptroller, 2018). The disinvestment affected service provision such as substance use and mental health treatment programs, reentry and rehabilitation services, and anti-violence programming, which are protective factors against crime and violence (Office of Illinois Comptroller, 2018). The Police Accountability Task Force (2016) described discriminatory policing against AA residents in Chicago communities—associated with police-initiated stops, physical and verbal abuse by the police, officer involved shooting, use of tasers, lack of police accountability, and denial of human and constitutional rights when detained by police. These discriminatory practices fuelAAs’ distrust in police and hesitation to access police services. The mechanisms of structural violence contribute to perpetuating the cycle of violence in these AA communities.

Street Outreach Violence Intervention

Street violence intervention became popular in the 1990s with CeaseFire, later called Cure Violence, an evidence-based approach developed in Chicago. In the Cure Violence model, members of the community (most of them with criminal backgrounds) act as violence interrupters and conflict mediators in communities with high rates of gun violence (Skogan et al., 2009; Webster et al., 2012). Cure Violence focuses on mitigating violence through a public health campaign that changes norms and attitudes about violence, targets gang members and at-risk youth to reduce risky behaviors that perpetrate violence, and mediates conflicts to prevent violent responses and retaliation (American Public Health Association, 2018; Petrosino et al., 2015; Webster et al., 2012). Research on Cure Violence in Chicago using an interrupted time series design and analyzing data for 17 years showed that the initiative reduced shootings and attempted shooting incidents by up to 28% in four of seven implementation sites evaluated (Petrosino et al., 2015; Wilson & Chermak, 2011). Similar initiatives that use outreach workers have been implemented nationwide including the Baltimore Safe Streets Program, Pittsburg One Vision One Life (Wilson & Chermak, 2011), Gang Reduction Initiative of Denver (Pyrooz et al., 2019), Cincinnati Initiative for Reduction of Violence, Save Our Streets in Brooklyn, and Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN) in Lowell, Massachusetts (Petrosino et al., 2015). For example, PSN, was implemented in 2002 and included street outreach workers who built relationships with gang members, offering services to decrease risky violent behaviors and communicating a ‘no violence’ message. According to Braga et al. (2008), for three years after the implementation of PSN, total gun homicides and gun aggravated assaults decreased by an average of about 28%. In addition to reducing violent incidents, street outreach intervention is a key public health approach that can foster trust, hope, and resilience (American Public Health Association, 2018).

Key aspects of street interventions are the outreach workers (also called credible messengers or violence interrupters) and the relationship between the outreach workers, program participants, and the community (Corburn, et al., 2021; Petrosino et al., 2015; Pyroozy et al., 2019; Whitehill, et al., 2013; Wilson & Chermak, 2011). Outreach workers are employed primarily because of their lived experience, and desire and commitment to reduce violence in their community (in which they lived or live). In outreach programs, the worker assesses their assigned participants’ risk for violence; implements risk reduction plans that typically include social service referrals (e.g. employment and substance use treatment); and provides conflict mediation sessions, monthly check-ins or informal social support sessions (e.g. accompanying the participant to a court hearing)), and goal planning and monitoring. Individuals considered at high risk of violence are those who have experienced violent victimization and/or are at risk of perpetrating violence. In a qualitative evaluation study conducted by the Jane Addams Center for Social Policy and Research (2021), most of the workers in the street outreach program they studied had an incarceration history and felt that they had influence due to their past lifestyle and trusting relationship with their community that can foster community change and violence reduction. While these underlying features represent opportunities for the prevention and interruption of violence, they also indicate the health and safety threat experienced by workers.

Prior to their employment as outreach workers, they experienced vulnerabilities to psychological health and physical injury similar to program participants due to past community violence exposure. Subsequent to their employment, those vulnerabilities continue and worsen as they go into harm’s way for the sake of interrupting violence. Bocanegra et al. (2021) described outreach workers as first responders who share clients’ experiences. Outreach workers attend to homicide scenes and mediate conflict by talking with gang members and other high-risk individuals that could potentially bring physical harm to them and their families. Workers may have frequent trauma triggers from their own experience as they form bonding relationships with clients, work to provide resources to victims and their families, and interact with the police and legal system. Additionally, outreach workers report experiencing police maltreatment while helping their clients and possible organizational trauma from the delegitimization and devaluation of their work (Bocanegra et al., 2021). This brings concerns about workers’ safety both mentally and physically as they provide outreach services in high-violence communities (Corburn, et al., 2021; Whitehill, et al., 2013). Resilience and adaptive coping skills are protective factors that can build outreach workers’ capacity to deal with the current and lasting effects of adversity and violence (Klepfisz et al., 2017).

Resilience and Coping with Community Violence

Resilience is dynamic, reflecting the systems involved in adaptation and this can be complex to conceptualize and measure. Broadly speaking, resilience describes the capacity to cope with, recover from, and overcome adversity. Miller-Karas (2015) adds that resilience includes the ability to use one’s adversities and challenges to ‘make meaning’ or develop ‘life purpose’ for the survivor and their community. In other words, with resilience, functioning improves and strengthens following adversity. Masten and Cicchietti (2016) stated that resilience emerges from interacting systems that shape the processes involved in its development and reflects the context as well as the history of the individual. In essence, an individual’s resilience depends on the function, process, and interaction of various systems that include the individual’s internal state, the family, and the broader environmental context. Resilience indicates that an individual has been exposed to adversity and demonstrates the capacity to adapt to a new level of functioning (Miller-Karas, 2015; Windle et al., 2011).

Several scales measure resilience. Windle et al. (2011) conducted a methodological review of resilience measures published in peer-reviewed journals over 20 years (1989 to 2009) and used with children, adolescents, and adults. They examined 15 scales and found that the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC ©) was among the high quality scales with valid psychometric measures. However, they concluded that CD-RISC measures resilience at the individual level without accounting for resources available in the environment that facilitate resilience. They also concluded that CD-RISC could benefit from further theoretical clarification. CD-RISC has three versions based on the number of items or questions (i.e., 25 questions, 10 questions, and 2 questions). The two shorter versions comprised of questions from the 25-question scale. The researchers used the CD-RISC 10 for this study due to the time limit and convenience to participants. The 25-item and 10-item scales correlate >.90 (Campbell-Sills & Stein, 2007). The 10-item scale is unidimensional, assessing the outcome differences between individuals who function well and those that do not after adversity (Campbell-Sills & Stein, 2007). The CD-RISC scale has been examined and validated among adults in the US general population (Connor & Davidson, 2003), individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and generalized anxiety (Vaishnavi et al., 2007), college students (Campbell-Sills & Stein, 2007), and a low-income community sample (Coates et al., 2013).

Theoretical Framework

The Lazarus and Folkman’s transactional theory of stress and coping was used to guide this study and understanding of the associations among community violence, street outreach, and resilience and coping. The transactional theory states that an individual’s cognitive appraisal, influenced by their personal agenda and environmental factors, is the driver of their stress reaction and coping response (Biggs et al., 2017). In this theory, it is the appraisal of the individual-environment transaction that is key in producing a response. The primary appraisal speaks to meaning and significance ascribed to the specific individual-environmental transaction while secondary appraisal is the meaning ascribed to managing the stressor and is activated when the primary appraisal is seen as stressful. Resiliency factors, within the individual and their environment, influence primary and secondary appraisals (Ward et al., 2021). Another key aspect of the theory is coping actions, which can be problem-focused (PFC) and emotional-focused (EFC; Biggs et al., 2017). According to Lazarus and Folkman’s theory, an individual can focus on managing the stressor directly (i.e. PFC) or on their emotions that result from interacting with the stressor (i.e. EFC), creating cognitive reappraisals and a continuous cycle of disequilibrium and adaptations to cope. Revisions of Lazarus and Folkman’s transactional theory of stress and coping include meaning-focused copingwhen stressful situations seem uncontrollable, which means using one’s values to re-order priorities to find meaning and benefits of the stressor (Biggs et. al., 2017).

Lazarus and Folkman’s transaction theory or psychological stress and coping theory has been well studied. Stokes and Jackson (2016) examined cognitive appraisals in the context of community violence and psychological outcomes in 99 youth, ages 11 to 15 years, and their caregivers, ages 29 to 60 years. They found support for the transactional theory in that the experience of stress is an individual response and associated with perceptions of the stressor. In another study, the researchers examined Black mothers’ coping and resilience in response to gun violence and found a significant association between cognitive appraisal and resilience with resilience having a greater correlation with the perception of controllability and the availability of supporting resources compared to the perception of the stressor itself (Bailey at al., 2021). They added that the mothers found meaning and resilience through belief that their experience had a purpose, through religious and spiritual beliefs, activism, and renewed purpose for their lives.

There are clear links among resilience, coping, and community violence, yet research is limited in the context of street outreach. Previous studies have examined the outcomes of street outreach and exposure to high violence but not workers’ resilience and coping mechanisms. Street outreach, as a community violence program, could be an asset or resource for building resilience and adaptive coping strategies for the program participants as well as the workers. In addition, studies have not fully examined the CD-RISC scale within community violence.

Current Study

This study is part of a larger mixed-methods research project focused on the impact of street outreach services on workers and program participants in a community-based agency located in two AA communities on the Southside of Chicago. Here, the findings focus on the resilience and coping of outreach workers. The study aims to address the gaps in existing research by exploring three main research questions:

1. What are the perceptions and experiences of street outreach workers living and working in a community with high violence?

2. What is the understanding and utilization of services provided by the street outreach program?

3. What are the understanding of resilience and coping, perception of support, and barriers to resilience and coping for street outreach workers?

The workers also completed the CD-RISC-10 scale to provide a measure for their resilience. Findings from this study can have significant implications. First, they can affect how street outreach programs are administered. Second, they can affect organizational practices, procedures, and policies that could improve workplace safety and health for street outreach workers. Finally, they can provide theoretical clarification for the CD-RISC-10 and measuring resilience of AAs in communities with high rates of violence.

Methods

Sample

Participants in this study included ten outreach workers from two communities located on the Southside of Chicago (five from each community). Street outreach workers live or have lived in the communities where they work and were considered high risk to perpetrate violence but have no pending criminal cases. They are full-time employees of the community-based agency and are responsible for working with high-risk individuals to prevent violence by mediating conflicts, modeling prosocial behaviors, providing social services, and engaging them in positive activities and the case management process.

The second author recruited participants through the distribution of flyers and word of mouth (i.e., through convenience and purposive sampling), at the agency locations in both Southside communities. Recruitment and interviews occurred from April to August 2022. The study included nine males and one female ranging in age from 40 to 59 years old. They identified as AA and have been employed as outreach workers at the agency for an average of two years. One worker reported previous employment as an outreach worker with another agency. Three reported incomplete high school diplomas or general educational development (GED) tests in process; four completed a high school diploma or its equivalent; and three reported associates’ degrees.

The first two authors conducted the one-on-one interviews with all workers at their agency locations and the workers received 40 US dollars compensation for their participation.

Instrument

The individual interviews were semi-structured with an interview guide. The four main questions covered in the guide are (a) perception and experiences of living in a high-risk, high-crime, or high-violence community; (b) understanding and utilization of services provided by the street outreach program; (c) understanding of resilience and coping and perceptions of support and barriers to resilience/coping; and (d) the understanding of the association between street outreach and resilience/coping before and during the coronavirus disease pandemic. This manuscript focuses on responses to the first three question areas. For example, one question on the utilization of street outreach program was, “describe the relationship that has been established between you and program participants and how has this relationship impacted how you provide street outreach services?” The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim.

At the start of the interview, each participant completed the CD-RISC-10 scale. It provided a measure of each client’s resilience experience within the past month. The CD-RISC-10 is a 10-item self-rating scale (Davidson, 2018). The scale is rated on a 5-point Likert scale (0 = not true at all, 1 = rarely true, 2 = sometimes true, 3 = often true, 4 = true nearly all the time) for a total score of 40 with higher scores representing greater resilience. It covers questions related to adaptability, dealing with challenges and difficulties, and managing distressing emotions. Some questions include, “I believe I can achieve my goals, even if there are obstacles,” and “Having to cope with stress can make me stronger.” The CD-RISC scale has been tested in community samples of low-income AAs and has a Cronbach alpha of .87 (Coates et al., 2013).

Procedure

At the start of the interview, the interviewer reviewed the recruitment script and eligibility with each participant. Then, eligible participants completed the informed consent form and CD-RISC-10 scale and selected a pseudonym. All names used below are participant pseudonyms. Interviews lasted for an average of 75 minutes and were semi-structured using the interview guide. The interviewers kept field notes with issues of interest. Participants received their compensation at the end of the interview. The Institutional Review Board at the University of Illinois Chicago approved this study.

Analysis

The thematic analysis was iterative and inductive because themes were identified based on the data collected from the case study design. In-depth interview recordings were transcribed verbatim. Then, the researchers applied Braun and Clarke’s six-phase process for thematic content analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The first author read all transcriptions and developed a preliminary codebook structured consistently with the interview guide. Then the first and third authors coded each transcription separately, using the codes from the codebook and adding emerging codes. Some discrepancies occurred on whether to add new codes or to apply existing codes. The two coders met, reviewed the transcriptions, and discussed the discrepancies until there was agreement on the set of codes. At the end of the coding stage, the first author merged similar individual codes and identified common themes. The second author also reviewed the codes and agreed on the common themes. Subsequently, the researchers conducted member checking with two participants, one from each community. Only two participants were available for member checking due to challenges in scheduling and contacting other participants. During the member checking, a written summary of the themes was shared with the participants and they agreed with the themes with no changes. Atlas.ti 8.0 (ATLAS.ti Scientific Software Development GmbH, n.d.) was used for coding and analyses.

Lincoln and Guba’s four-concept model: credibility, transferability, auditability, and confirmability (Lietz & Zayas, 2010), was implemented to maximize the trustworthiness and minimize bias of the qualitative results. The researchers engaged in intercoder agreement, member checking to obtain feedback on the authenticity of the findings and interpretation, triangulation (sources of data include field notes from multiple interviewers, data from program participants and workers, and the CD-RISC-10 scale), and reflexivity (Lietz & Zayas, 2010). Data from program participants is not included in this manuscript.

Results and Discussion

Social environment systems significantly affected the workers’ resilience and coping capacity and their interaction with outreach services, therefore findings for the three research questions were presented using the ecological systems framework adapted from Bronfenbrenner’s theory (Neal & Neal, 2013; see Figure 1). Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory describes the impact of the environment on the well-being of the individual. The theory states that the individual interacts with five systems or structures (the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem), which are interdependent and where the smaller systems are nested within the larger systems (Neal & Neal, 2013). The interactions among these systems determine the focal individual’s functioning and well-being. The microsystem is at the lowest level and represents an individual’s experiences with their immediate environment (e.g. interactions with family). The mesosystem is the next level and represents interactions between microsystems (e.g. the family living within a neighborhood with high violence affects the individual’s well-being). The third system, the exosystem, represents structures that the individual does not directly interact with (e.g. outreach agency access to funding and resources). The fourth system, the macrosystem, represents the influences of broad cultural ideologies and societal norms (e.g. racial identity). The final system, the chronosystem, represents the influence and dimension of time on the individual and their environment (e.g. developmental age). The microsystem is nested within the mesosystem, the mesosystem is nested within the exosystem, and so forth. The themes highlight individual and system level factors associated with community violence, resilience, and coping, and the utilization of outreach services among street outreach workers. For the individual level, outreach workers categorized themes into internal state, perception, past experiences, and future goals (see Figure 1). For system level factors, workers categorized themes into microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem (see Figure 1). System level factors focus on the effects of community violence and street outreach on resilience capacity based on interactions among various systems in the workers’ environment (e.g. family, work, and community).The authors combined and presented results from both Southside communities as workers reported similar experiences.

Figure 1. Ecological Framework for Resilience and Coping of Street Outreach Workers: Results from the Thematic Analysis.

Individual Level Factors in Resilience and Coping

Outreach workers described individual level factors associated with community violence, outreach utilization, and their resilience capacity and adaptive coping skills. These factors included their internal state, perceptions, past experiences, and future goals. Luthar et al. (2006) propose unpacking resilience using innate and contextual factors as demonstrated in this finding.

Internal State.

The workers described resilience as a positive attribute they possess with the ability to adapt to changes and challenges. Workers have a high stress tolerance. Based on the results of the CD-RISC-10 scale, 8 out of 10 workers scored in the top quartile (score ranged from 32 to 40) representing high resilience capacity (see Table 1). In addition, coping with stress (score of 25 out of 40) and being easily discouraged by failures (score of 24 out of 40), were the lowest scores among participants (see Table 1). This interview with Burberry corroborated findings from the CD-RISC-10 scale:

I could bounce back from anything. I take losses. I could take anything that stand in my way and I can move from it. I don’t let nothing just get me down. If it get me down, it won’t keep me down. You know if I fall down seven times, I got up eight, you know?

Table 1.

CD-RISC-10 Scores for Outreach Workers

Workers	CD-RISC 10 Items
	Adapt to changes	Can deal with whatever comes	See the humorous side of problems	Cope with stress make stronger	Bounce back after hardships	Believe I can achieve my goals	Stay focused and think clearly	Not easily discouraged by failure	Strong person	Able to handle unpleasant feelings	Total per person
Kent	4	4	1	3	4	4	3	3	4	4	34
Sox	2	3	1	2	1	1	2	0	4	1	17
Greg	4	3	4	1	4	4	4	4	4	4	36
Tony	4	4	3	3	4	4	4	0	3	4	33
Anigma	4	4	3	2	4	4	4	4	4	4	37
Dee	4	4	3	2	3	4	4	3	4	4	35
Sha	4	3	3	4	4	4	2	0	4	4	32
Burberry	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	40
Paul	3	3	2	0	2	3	3	2	3	2	23
Buddy	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	40
Total score per item	37	36	28	25	34	36	34	24	38	35

Kent added:

Overall, it’s real nerve-racking [referring to living and working in the community], man. It’s very disturbing…but you have to have a strong mind in order to deal with it, in order to be here and not lose your sanity, but I consider myself a strong person and strong minded...

Overall, workers reported the continuous presence of stress due to high violence and the possibility of failure but utilized several adaptive strategies to cope. Common coping strategies reported by workers werefaith in God or a higher power, support from family and friends, reading, thinking through solutions, doing fun things, staying focused on goals, a sense of appreciation, and meditation.

Perception.

Workers also described their perceptions and beliefs about violence, their community, and the street outreach program affecting their ability to persevere and cope. They talked about having empathy, compassion, and respect for the community due to living in the community. Most workers see violence, particularly gun violence, as a community norm because of its frequent occurrence. They described “senseless and innocent killing” but also reported a sense of purpose and commitment to helping the community, as they were “part of the negative energy,”referring to their past involvement in perpetrating crime and violence. Dee reported, “I wanted to give back to the community. A lot of things that I took out, I played a big part in a lot of stuff that was going on, but I felt like I could make a difference…”

Workers described violence as senseless due to the killing of youth, as a form of retaliation, violence between individuals familiar with each other or who grew up in the same neighborhood, and uncontrolled emotions related to jealousy, resentment, and arrogance of others with higher economic status. Sha stated:

…you see a lot of killing, a lot of violence, like a lot of anger and people in competition with each other… it’s a lot of different things that cause them to be angry though. It is about just not having the things that they want, watching somebody else that might have more than what they have. So, it could be a big problem called jealousy.

Workers believed that street outreach provides the opportunity to address challenges experienced by youth and other community residents. Through street outreach, the workers provide job training, job and social service referrals, conflict mediation, and form trusting mentorship (i.e. social support) relationships. While the tangible and emotional resources and support provided by street outreach are important to decrease community violence, they are not sufficient to end the violent occurrences and their negative effects according to workers, due to its magnitude. On a scale from one to five (one representing not important and five representing a very important violence intervention strategy), all workers rated street outreach as a five. However, workers believe that street outreach is a short-term solution because violence is engrained in the culture of their community and more early prevention work is needed, particularly for youth and their families. Buddy reported:

The presence of outreach workers and certain influence in the community deters violence. Even though my belief is at that age [referring to adolescence and young adulthood] it’s like putting a band aid on a bullet wound. It’s a waste of time. But at some point, you know, to me, some people get it 80% of the time, it’s a waste of time, because we can only say or do so much and if you, getting back to what I was saying, if you wait till somebody starts shooting, there’s no coming back. You can’t say I quit. I don’t want to do it no more. You see what I’m saying? So, the whole thing about it is prevention, you got to stop it before it starts. But once you start shooting and you’re a known shooter and you done got one of what their guys, you can’t throw up the flag, talking about, you know what, I want to go to school now. Ah, they going to kill you whenever they catch you and it’s generational. They don’t forget. They pass it on from one person to the next person, to the little babies coming up. You know what I mean? It don’t stop. He killed so and so 20 years ago, they killed so and so 20 years, and they still killing back and forth about this Negro that got killed 20 years ago, because you from that area…

Regarding the perception about the community, while both communities have high levels of violence, some outreach workers depicted the communities as being “not that bad” and “having safe areas,” because of their familiarity with the community but added the need to be “cautious and vigilant” to be physically safe. Liu and Duan (2023) found that having a positive appraisal of one’s external environment is a key component of an individual’s resilience and sense of hope as depicted in this study.

Past Experience.

Most outreach workers described various traumatic experiences that fostered their sense of resilience and coping capacity. These traumatic experiences include a past gang lifestyle, incarceration history, death of family and close friends, growing up in a family lacking basic resources, and living in a community with high violence. For example, Burberry stated:

I used to kind of lead the streets in a way. You know what I mean? So with me changing, I can also show that it’s not hopeless. All ain’t lost. You can still do things that you want to do without having to be doing what you were doing. What we were taught. We were always like, I got into selling drugs and doing everything because that’s what I was shown. That’s what I was taught. Nobody sat me down and said, hey, listen, let’s go build your credit. Hey, look, let’s go help you start a job. Let’s go help you start a business. Let’s go help your business. It was, hey, let’s go sell these drugs and we can get rich off of them, I believed it at the time. Hey, man, let’s do it. You know what I’m saying? But I didn’t know that jail came with it, death came with it and all the other things that I was going to experience in life. So, you know, I kind of was like, let me do things a lot different...

Workers believe that these experiences, though emotionally distressing and challenging, were life lessons that were pivotal in their lifestyle change and desire to give back to the community. The life course perspective speaks of turning points or transitional events that changes one’s life from the expected trajectory outlined by society due to one’s life experiences (Hutchinson, 2015). According to this theoretical perspective, outreach workers may have used these traumatic life experiences as derailment from negative life expectation to positive outcomes (e.g. motivation to give back to one’s community).

Future Goals.

Several workers reported personal goals and future orientation as part of their motivation, perseverance, and life purpose connected to street outreach and their resilience. Some goals include being an entrepreneur, completing a college degree or a skills training program, and establishing youth programs in their community.

System Level Factors in Resilience and Coping

Microsystem.

Family (especially children), the work agency and administrators, fellow outreach workers and peers, the community, outreach program participants, and other community residents were included in significant microsystems highlighted by workers (see Figure 1). These microsystems interact with each other at the mesosystem level to promote or hinder the resilience and coping capacity of the workers. Liu and Duan (2023) found that the individual’s resilience perception is dependent on the constant interaction and transactions between their internal capacity and response to the external environment and resources, which is supported by this study.

Mesosystem.

Interacting with the family at the mesosystem level, most workers reported that having children changed their way of thinking and life priorities. Wanting to be a positive role model in the community and wanting a safe community with less violence stimulated their own lifestyle change and perseverance.

Interacting with work at the mesosystem level, most workers reported a change in lifestyle from violence perpetration to encouraging community youth and other residents to focus on positive future life goals before working in outreach. Nevertheless, most workers stated that outreach work provided them with various skills training that enhanced their problem solving, emotional regulation, and decision-making skills. They believe that doing outreach work further gave them a sense of accountability and empowered them with tangible resources (such as employment referrals) and improved the social skills needed to build rapport with youth and other community residents. Anigma reported:

Some of the mostly rewarding things for me, to be honest, 100%, changing my lifestyle, feeling a little more comfortable with living and knowing that I can offer and change some things for some people, because the lifestyle I was living, I was just a guy coming out here… I gotta go sell some drugs. I gotta get some money. I don’t have to do that, like I said, I have two jobs now, so I stay busy, and I know right from wrong. So I knew right from wrong still when you’re in a certain situation that you feel like you got to get out... Get in it. Despite it… they [referring to street outreach workers and administrators] guide me in the sense of, knowing I gotta do right, set an example. I don’t think it’s no way humanely possible I wouldn’t have looted when Chicago looted. He [referring to the chief executive director of the outreach program] had you know talked to us [referring to the outreach workers] and was like talking to us about how senseless this [the looting] was and you know how it’s unacceptable because you know just we just throwing away our own community and he said, if somebody [referring to outreach workers] got caught looting around us, they ain’t working for us anymore. Man, do you know all that day I heard no police responded to no calls [listening to the police scanner], and they let this whole city go to pieces... And I sit and watch, I’m saying this in a sense of being a career crook, a career criminal. I didn’t do nothing, and I was proud of myself because despite me not doing and I still didn’t need to do anything ‘cause I’ve been straight, I need no money, but it help out… just the decision-making… And I saw looting going on and some of the things getting took and I seen it with my own eyes... I would have some truckloads of stuff. But what was said that day [by the chief executive director], I really took that to heart and I fall back. So when it comes to asking about the effect that that job has being an outreach worker, you know the certain things you gotta be accountable for, as a person, and as an employee [of the outreach agency]. That right there it give you a better outlook you know give you a better sense of wanting to do good of wanting to do right.

On the other hand, one worker reported the need to feel more supported by work administrators to fulfil future goals (e.g. starting a youth program) and another worker highlighted that the change in work procedures and demands and the need for more documentation negatively affect time spent to engage outreach participants and community residents. Additionally, some workers stated that thesalary needs to commensurate the nature and magnitude of the job requirements. Bocanegra et al. (2021) found that outreach workers frequently mentioned the need for higher salary, which could provide access to needed mental health resources to address traumatic stress symptoms.

Interacting with fellow outreach workers provided an expanded social support network that workers relied on and utilized when facing personal and work challenges. The opportunity to work legally reduces the chances of returning to a crime lifestyle and keeps them connected to a social network of fellow workers with shared experience, desires, and motivation to improve public safety in their communities.

Interacting with outreach participants and community residents provides workers with purpose and a sense of accomplishment, pride, and importance or self-value. This motivates their desire to persevere and be a positive role model. Sox indicated this:

I like when we be going out and we canvass [referring to a group of workers in work shirt walk around the community, showing their support and providing information on their services]. I like that because we turn heads. What y’all doing because that is good. So, I like their compliments and stuff we get, and the people that run up and wanna know… It [referring to canvassing] looks like a group of people and… we have our vest on, about 50 or 60 [workers] be something like that. Then we have our shirts on, our polos and stuff, with our [agency name] on and have our vest on... And how that group of people, and all the attention we get, cars stopping and horns blowing, and they wanna know what we’re doing. Aww, we’re with you, can I get in? So a lot of all that make me get excited.

Equally, workers believe maintaining appropriate boundaries with program participants is key in forming a positive role model relationship and for street outreach to be effective in reducing violence. For example, Buddy stated:

I don’t buy guns. I don’t buy bullets. I don’t aid and assist them [referring to community residents and/or program participants engaging in criminal acts] in no garbage. You understand what I’m saying? I stay on OG. You know what I’m saying, old school. We not buddies. We not friends. We ain’t none of that. When you get on their level and you deal with ‘em on their level, now you just like them. See a lot of people [referring to other outreach workers] make mistakes. They want to be cool. So, they give these kids money.

Overall, the interaction of various microsystems at the mesosystem level produced some difficulties but also social support, resources, self-value, and opportunities to be a positive role model that fueled the workers’ resilience and coping capacity.

Exosystem.

At the exosystem level, most workers reported that the agency’s limited access to funding and resources is a major challenge to their capacity to meet the community’s needs. Simultaneously, the workers talked about the misunderstanding and underutilization of street outreach services by residents and the negative influence of social media, music, and drugs in violence perpetration as common challenges. Community residents and youth are unfamiliar with the role of outreach workers and have the misperception that they might be trying to serve a quasi-police function thus affecting service engagement. Police often harass and misunderstand workers as possible gang leaders due to their influence: they mediate conflicts and ultimately reduce retaliation and violence. In addition, they described threatening social media posts, music with violent messages, and drug use as inciters of many of the conflicts mediated and that they have little control over these aspects of society. Lacking power and control in these situations at the exosystem level could challenge the workers’ resilience and generate feelings of stress. Similarly, Pawelz and Elver (2018) found that music, music videos, and social media by individuals involved in violence and gangs are frequently used to display power and threats, motivate criminal activities, and glorify a violent lifestyle and thus are common inciters of violence.

Macrosystem.

At the macrosystem level, workers described racial discrimination, discriminatory and ineffective policing, economic and social disinvestment in youth programs, generational transmission of violence, and lacking basic resources as negatively affecting their community and thus capacity for resilience and coping. Tony described police interaction with youth in the community:

Build a relationship with these people [referring to community youth]. That’s the main thing. The difference is, they [referring to police] so, under the harassment act, police don’t even respect these kids, so why would I want to deal with a cop, if I was these kids, ‘cause they’re not trying to build a relationship with them, they harassing them, driving down on... jumping out treating them all like criminals.

Meanwhile, Anigma spoke of the generational effects:

As far as seeing the younger guys repeating some of the things that I did as a kid, and it’s disturbing to me because it seems like it’s a generational pattern now more so than me just making bad decisions as I got older. So some of these things are conditioned and designed, so if you don’t watch it, you automatically get caught up in it just by being in the environment.

The workers described a sense of community respect and trust as one macro-level factor that can enhance their capacity as an outreach worker. Generally, community residents and youth display respect and trust towards workers because of their shared experience, familiarity, and involvement to uplift the community. This respect gives the workers a sense of safety as they provide services to the community.

Chronosystem.

Most workers described developmental maturity as the main chronosystem level factor linked to their capacity to cope and bounce back from challenges. Workers believed that as they get older, their priorities, way of thinking, and behaviors changed from a life of crime and violence. They are more equipped to regulate their emotions and think critically when making decisions. Previous research has established a curvilinear (or an inverted U-patter) relationship between age and crime that is criminal behaviors rise during adolescence, peak at 18 years old, and then sharply declines shortly afterwards (Stolzenberg & D’Alessio, 2008). In essence, age is associated with a decrease in criminal behaviors. For example, Burberry stated:

Like now I’m a lot older, so those experiences back then of going to jail was a cakewalk. What’s this, you know, I going, I’m cool. Everybody’s going to know me. Like, you know, oh, here go such and such. It is like, who is it? It wasn’t jail to me. But now as I’m older, I don’t want that. You know what I’m saying? I don’t want that in my life. I don’t have time. I don’t want to go into a police station for real…I didn’t know it back then… but it kind of got me to where I feel like now my freedom is everything.

Theoretical Considerations for the Resilience Scale

The CD-RISC 10 scale focuses on individual level factors that include the individual’s perception, beliefs, emotional response, and experiences with stress and overcoming challenges. The full 25-item scale includes questions about close and secure relationships such as knowing where to go for help, and fate or God, when dealing with stressful situations. However, these questions may not sufficiently assess resilience in adults exposed to community violence. Based on the findings from this study, it is essential to account for system level factors when assessing the resilience and coping of individuals in communities with high violence. The stress level and well-being of outreach workers are intricately connected to their community, culture, and the broader society, which can affect their resilience capacity. Living and working in high-violence communities influences outreach workers’ exposure to challenges as well as their access to resources linked to resilience capacity. A resilience scale for adults exposed to high-violence communities should include questions that assess the impact of their immediate family and social environment, accessible and available community resources, exposure to stress in the community, and the effects of racial/cultural identity. Liu and Duan (2023) found that access to external support, services, and environmental resources significantly affect one’s capacity to adapt to challenges and adversity.

Limitations

This researchhas three main limitations. First, this case study focused on one street outreach social service program with workers located in two AA communities limiting the generalizability of the findings. While this outreach program is well-established in Chicago, future studies that target multiple agencies or programs could strengthen the study’s findings. Second, while street outreach as a violence intervention model started with CeaseFire (now Cure Violence) in the 1990s, this study focused on a street outreach agency that started as an independent agency in 2018 and most outreach workers interviewedhad been employed for about two years. Only two workers reported previous employment with Cure Violence and street outreach experience of 5 to 6 years. Limited years of experience may limit workers’ reports, even though the two more experienced workers’ experiences and perceptions were similar to that of the others. Furthermore, previous studies on street outreach mainly focused on program participants and violence reduction outcomes. Thus, examining resilience and coping in street outreach workers is relatively new to the literature and research. Third, outcome data associated with resilience and coping, community violence, and street outreach utilization were not assessed. Researchers asked workers about factors that promote or hinder resilience and adaptive coping but did not directly measure quantitative outcome data. Future studies should gather quantitative outcome data and qualitative data for a comprehensive evaluation of program effects.

Implications and Conclusion

Despite these limitations, this study has significant findings and implications. This study highlighted that street outreach social service intervention is an important public health strategy to address community violence in AA communities. Outreach workers are a significant component of outreach programs. Workers are part of the fabric and culture of the community and thus are relatable and motivated to reduce violence in their community. Their relationships with residents give them access to prevent retaliation and intervene in conflicts. Furthermore, being an outreach worker allows them to provide community residents with tangible resources like job opportunities that can reduce violence perpetrated as a means of economic survival. Yet, police and residents often misunderstand street outreach, which can result to suspicion, harassment, and underutilization of services. There is a need for more public awareness about community-based violence intervention programs to sensitize the society to their significance and role and change any negative perception. Also, outreach programs generally rely on state or local funding, grants, and donations to operate and thus have limited funding and resources. Additional research is needed on street outreach, its process, and utilization to inform policies, procedures, and funding programs.

Moreover, this study indicated that street outreach programs can be a conduit that fosters positive lifestyle changes and well-being and build resilience in their workers. Street outreach provides workers with legal employment and the opportunity to provide social services and other resources to individuals at high risk of perpetuating violence. This gives workers a sense of purpose, motivation or hope for a safer community, and accomplishment. However, workers need more organizational policies and procedures to support their mental health and address trauma exposure. Poor mental health and stress increase the risk for poor job performance, low productivity, and difficulties with daily functioning and work engagement (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018). Outreach workers experience the negative and cumulative effects of trauma exposure associated with growing up, residing, and/or working in communities with high violence. In fact, high violence characterizes the work environment. Workplace health programs for mental health and stress management include opportunities for mental health assessment and workplace stress evaluations, mental health education and training that meets workers’ needs, safe work spaces in which to relax and de-stress, open communication about stress management, and adequate health insurance to cover prevention and treatment services (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018). In particular, outreach programs should include organizational procedures that provide more trauma-healing services like trauma psychoeducation. In addition, outreach organizations should provide more support for workers’ future goals and advancement that could further strengthen their resilience and coping capacity. For example, some organizations provide funding or opportunities for workers to obtain their college degree, complete skills training programs, and technical assistance on entrepreneurial projects.

Finally, this study highlighted the importance of including both individual level and system level factors when assessing the resilience of AAs affected by community violence. The workers reported several individual level (e.g. perceptions) as well as system level factors (e.g. racial identity) that were significant in building resilience and adaptive coping skills. It is recommended that resilience scales consider both individual and system level factors when assessing the resilience capacity of AAs affected by community violence.

Overall, outreach workers are highly resilient individuals who have learned how to adapt, tolerate challenges, and find life meaning and purpose. Their shared trauma with the community fuels their passion, commitment, motivation, and hope for change and social service provision yet they constantly live and work in a state of stress and thus their psychological and physical well-being are at risk.

Biographies

Michelle-Ann Rhoden Neita, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois Chicago. She is also a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Florida and Illinois, Registered Play Therapist, and a Certified Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapist. She has extensive practice experience working with youth and families affected by childhood trauma. Currently, her research and community involvement focuses on trauma-informed and healing-centered interventions to address community violence, childhood trauma, and racial trauma of Blacks.

Joseph Strickland, PhD, is Associate Director and Senior Researcher for the Jane Addams Center for Social Policy and Research. He is the managing editor of the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation. With strong ties to the community, he manages the Center’s research projects, conducts research on African American males and incarceration, organizes forums to disseminate key findings, and provides consultation on youth development to community agencies.

Andie Riffer, MSW, is a doctoral student at the Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois Chicago. They received their Masters in Social Work at Syracuse University and bachelor’s at Indiana University. They conduct research on censorship in policies focused on queer and disability rights.

Dennise Moreno, MSW, is a Ph.D. student at the University of Illinois Chicago – Jane Addams College of Social Work. She received a bachelor’s in Sociology and Masters in Social Work from the University of Houston. Her research includes Latinx communities, immigration, environmental justice, and civic engagement.