A mentor programme for urban adolescents who’ve been injured in fights may help some get out of their cycle of violence, a new study suggests.

Reporting in the journal Paediatrics, researchers say that a programme that gives children and teens one-on-one mentoring seems to reduce kids’ aggression and their rate of misdemeanours.

The programme was implemented in two emergency departments in the Washington, DC-Baltimore area, focusing on children and teenagers who’d been injured in a fight or assault.

Researchers randomly assigned 166 families with 10- to 15-year-olds who had been assaulted to one of two groups: in one the kids were paired with a mentor from a community organisation; in the other, the families were given information on community resources that could help them deal with their child’s problems.

Six months later, the study found that kids in the mentoring programme reported improvements in their aggressiveness and the rate of recent misdemeanours was less than one third of that in the comparison group.

“There can be a cycle of violence fuelled by fear and retaliatory feelings,” lead study author D. Tina L. Cheng, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said in a statement from the university.

“When we see youth with assault injuries in the ER,” she said, “we have a golden window of opportunity to step in and interrupt this cycle, and our findings suggest that pairing teens with mentors who teach them problem-solving skills can help decrease the risk of future violence.”

Mentors in the programme were trained to help kids learn non-violent ways to manage problems with their peers. Parents were also offered home visits from a health educator who gave them advice on how to help their children avoid violence.

The study, according to Dr Cheng’s team, suggests that the ER can be an ideal place to connect families with the help they need. A dozen years ago, they note, the American Academy of Paediatrics called upon ERs to try such interventions, but little research has looked at what types of programmes actually work.

“We have clear protocols on how to treat suicidal youth or victims of child abuse, but when it comes to youth injured in peer assaults, we tend to ask a few questions, treat and release,” Dr Cheng said.

“Our study,” she added, “suggests that we can do things that make a difference, such as asking more probing questions about the incident and quickly referring the patients to mentoring and counselling programmes.”

Reuters Health

Source: Paediatrics, November 2008.