U.S. Deputy Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. dedicated the National Center for Children Exposed to Violence (NCCEV) on May 8 at Yale’s Child Study Center.
Funded by the Department of Justice, the NCCEV will provide training and technical assistance to nine communities around the country that will establish or enhance partnerships among police, mental health providers and others that address the problem of children exposed to violence.
A second goal of the NCCEV is to create national awareness of both the reality of children’s and families’ exposure to violence and the most effective prevention and intervention strategies.
The model for the NCCEV is the Child Development Community Policing Program (CDCP) of the Yale Child Study Center, which has received support from the Department of Justice since 1994. The CDCP, begun in 1991, is a collaboration among law enforcement, juvenile justice and mental health professionals in New Haven and at Yale on behalf of children and families exposed to violence. Led by Steven Marans, Harris Assistant Professor of Child Psychoanalysis at Yale, the program has intervened in the lives of more than 3,000 children and families since its inception.
The nine communities that will receive training and assistance from the NCCEV as part of the Department of Justice’s Safe Start Initiative are Baltimore, Md., Bridgeport, Conn., Chicago, Ill., Rochester, N.Y., San Francisco, Calif., Spokane, Wash., Washington County in Maine, Pinellas County in Florida and Chatham County in North Carolina.
More information about the NCCEV is available at the program’s Web page (www.nccev.org).
