Safe and Successful Youth Initiative in Massachusetts (SSYI)

Youth violence presents significant challenges across the U.S., disrupts communities and economic development, increases health care costs, and decreases property values—not to mention the human impact. In 2010, Massachusetts was the most violent state in the Northeast—the MA Public Health Council reported 1,667 homicide victims between 2001 and 2010, with nearly 40 percent of them between ages 14 and 24.

In 2010, building on more than a decade of statewide violence reduction efforts including Operation Ceasefire, Project Safe Neighborhoods, and the Shannon Community Safety Initiative, as well as city level efforts like the Boston Partners Advancing Communities Together (PACT) Initiative, Massachusetts developed an approach to reduce gun violence in cities with the highest per capita rates of violent crime.

The Safe and Successful Youth Initiative (SSYI) began in 2011 as a signature program under the governor’s office and has since operated within the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS). Originally launched in 11 cities and focused on youth ages 14 to 24, SSYI is a multifaceted, community-based strategy that uses a public health approach, in partnership with law enforcement, to eliminate lethal and nonlethal violence among young people who have already committed, and often been the victim of, gun and gang violence (i.e., proven-risk youth). SSYI now operates in 14 cities across the state, serving nearly 2,000 clients ages 17 to 24 annually in communities that include Boston, Brockton, Chelsea, Fall River, Haverhill, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, New Bedford, North Adams, Pittsfield, Springfield, and Worcester.

Since SSYI's inception, AIR and WestEd have served as the statewide evaluator for the initiative. The AIR-WestEd team has produced numerous articles, briefs, and reports, including cost-benefit studies, that demonstrate SSYI’s effectiveness and broader evidence reviews examining Massachusetts' unique statewide approach to violence prevention.
 

Evaluation of SSYI

In December 2014, then-Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick released an AIR evaluation report including three outcome studies of SSYI. The evaluation illustrated positive benefits to the young people involved in the program. For example, compared with youth and young adults who were actively engaged in SSYI services, youth and young adults who were not involved in SSYI, but had similar violent crime backgrounds, were 42% more likely to be incarcerated.

Since SSYI’s inception, rates of violent offenses and victimization in non-SSYI cities saw modest decreases or were relatively stable. Conversely, in cities with SSYI funding, rates have steadily declined since 2012. The findings from AIR’s most recent evaluation highlight SSYI’s positive impact on community and individual level crime and a return on investment (see below), as well as on the lives of participants. For example, after 2012, clients enrolled in SSYI had 36 percent fewer violent offenses and 20 percent fewer non-violent offenses than did young men identified for the program who never enrolled. Further, self-reported survey data from SSYI clients shows that SSYI provides these young men with resources and supports they value, if not depend on and participation in SSYI facilitates meaningful changes in the lives of participants that decrease their likelihood for future involvement with violence and improve their prospects for future personal, social, economic, and physical wellbeing.

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AIR will release updated evaluation results focused on the impact of SSYI’s core components—street outreach, case planning and management, and needs-based service engagement—later this year.

The latest AIR-WestEd study of SSYI is exploring the client-level impacts of SSYI’s outreach, case management, and services targeted to meet each client’s priority needs. Using lifetime offending histories and client case management data, the study is examining the core components of SSYI’s Theory of Change, developed through previous evaluations of the initiative. Study findings will be released in fall 2021.

SSYI Theory of Change

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The Promise of SSYI in Massachusetts and Beyond

Within the environment of SSYI’s success, Massachusetts is actively exploring ways to develop cross-initiative evaluation strategies across programs like the Department of Public Safety’s Shannon Community Safety Initiative targeting secondary risk populations and the Department of Public Health’s Child and Youth Violence Prevention Services initiative. The commonwealth’s investment in this expanded approach to violence prevention across a risk continuum, from primary to tertiary risk populations, has also pioneered the way for other states to develop comprehensive statewide approaches to violence prevention. Several states have looked to the SSYI model—both in how the program serves and supports clients and in how the state provides the funds and infrastructure (including ongoing evaluation and technical assistance) necessary to support sustainable implementation—as a means to advance their own violence prevention efforts. Learn more.
 

Best Practice Review of Evidence

As part of the SSYI study, AIR and WestEd conducted a best practice review of evidence about the effectiveness of violence prevention programs targeted at urban youth. The findings are detailed in What Works to Prevent Urban Violence Among Proven Risk Young Men? The Safe and Successful Youth Initiative (SSYI) Evidence and Implementation Review (PDF).

The best practice review of evidence, conducted through a Rapid Evidence Assessment, identified ten effective programs reporting at least a ten percent reduction in violent incidents. These programs shared two common features: use of street outreach workers and connections with community services for high-risk youth (e.g., help finding work and earning a GED).

The review of evidence indicates the importance of integrating an array of community services rather than just addressing gang-related issues. It also makes eight recommendations to guide violence prevention implementation and evaluation of impacts.