The Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project in Chicago

Project. The debriefing form consisted of nine major topics the youth workers were expected torespond to: the most important things that happened in their work; gang-related issues; contactswith Project police/probation officers; job-related services; education-related services; otherservices provided to youth; contacts with family members; special problems (including fieldworkand administrative problems); and any further support they felt they needed in order to dotheir work. While interviewing each youth worker at the Project research offices at theUniversity of Chicago School of Social Service Administration, the research assistant usuallyfilled out the form as they talked together about the questions and the youth worker’s responsesto them. The discussion, although guided by specific topics, was relatively open-ended. Thequestions were general, so that the youth workers would feel free to bring up other related thingsthey had done or observed during the week.The debriefing form was originally intended as a method of monitoring what youthworkers were doing on the job, and was not meant to provide comprehensive information onyouth-worker activities. Nevertheless, the forms proved highly useful in gathering detailedinformation about the nature of their activities. The analysis of the data supplied focused onwhat the worker did and whom he contacted. The analysis reflected a bias in favor of the workerwho completed a greater number of forms compared to those who filled out fewer forms. (Agood worker might have completed fewer forms, but done a better job.) Despite this problem,the debriefing forms were a source of useful information that was generally consistent with thefindings of the summary worker-tracking forms reported in Part I, above.Except for one youth worker (who had not been a gang member but lived in LittleVillage and had extensive contacts with gang youth), all Project youth workers were former9.16