About The National Center For Children Exposed to Violence

About the National Center for Children Exposed to Violence

About the NCCEV

History of the Project

The National Center for Children Exposed to Violence (NCCEV) has been established by the U.S. Department of Justice at the Yale Child Study Center as part of the Children Exposed to Violence Initiative. It is based on the pioneering work of the Child Development-Community Policing Program, a decade-long model of collaboration between mental health, policing, and juvenile justice. Under the leadership of Dr. Steven Marans and with the support of the Department of Justice, Offices of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Violence Against Women, and Victims of Crime, the CD-CP program has been recognized widely as a national training and teaching resource. The staff and faculty at the NCCEV will apply knowledge and expertise gained through the activities of the CD-CP program to their work with Safe Start sites.

Mission

The National Center for Children Exposed to Violence has three major objectives:

To promote public and professional awareness of the effects of violence on children.
To provide training and technical assistance to communities around the country who are developing collaborative efforts to respond to children and families exposed to violence.
To establish a national clearinghouse and website for information about violent traumatization and successful approaches to intervention.

Programs

The goals of the NCCEV will be achieved through a variety of programs. The overall program strategy of the NCCEV is informed by two overarching principles that are central to the Child Study Center’s approach to children exposed to violence: 1) all teaching and training is guided by an understanding of developmental concepts and theory and 2) multidisciplinary, multi-system community partnerships are essential to effective programs for children affected by violence and trauma.

The NCCEV website will offer free access to the national clearinghouse and publications of the Center, as well as interactive training and technical assistance. The clearinghouse will maintain a selective collection of curricula, pamphlets, articles and other publications focusing on children exposed to violence and trauma. Future related projects include a public awareness campaign and public service advertisements focusing on enhancing the awareness of citizens to children’s exposure to violence and its damaging effects.
The NCCEV is the national training and technical assistance provider to the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s Safe Start Demonstration initiative. The training and technical assistance will address the need to include specific collaborations that will bring programs and systems dealing with children who have been involved in situations of violence and personal safety to the table. This approach will not only fill a much-needed gap in the continuum of care, it will also serve to enhance public awareness of the complex problems faced by these children.
The NCCEV will also continue the work started through the CD-CP program in offering training, technical assistance, and other consulting support to sites across the USA replicating the Child Development-Community Policing program. There are currently ten replication sites nationally, with another nine sites that have expressed interest, or are at various stages in the initiation of the program.