World Sport Chicago Teams up with University of Chicago to Study Violence Prevention Efforts Through Sport 

CHICAGO (November 18, 2009)—World Sport Chicago, The University of Chicago Crime Lab and other community partners are launching a new program designed to help society learn more about how to help boys avoid conflict and succeed in school and life.

Beginning this month in 14 Chicago schools, the initiative, “Becoming a Man—Sports Edition,” will provide hundreds of adolescent boys with a combination of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and access to non-traditional sport opportunities with the hope of identifying an effective strategy for addressing the unique challenges facing many of the city’s male youth. World Sport Chicago will provide the sports programming as part of the collaboration.

The first component of the program is a group-based, youth-intervention designed by Youth Guidance, one of Chicago’s oldest and most established social service agencies offering counseling and life-preparedness programs to Chicago public school students who come from some of the City’s most challenged neighborhoods. “Becoming a Man (BAM)” uses cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) to improve students’ emotional self-regulation and social skill development to help them avoid potential conflicts.

The second component is the inclusion of Olympic sports — including archery, boxing, judo, team handball, wrestling and weightlifting — developed by World Sport Chicago. World Sport Chicago aims to increase the awareness of and involvement in Olympic and Paralympic sport among the city’s youth. World Sport Chicago will provide after-school sport programs that offer safe and supervised recreational opportunities directed by coaches trained in the basics of the B.A.M. program model, which will support students’ social and emotional development.

The sport component serves as an opportunity to reinforce the principles and values that students learn through B.A.M. It also provides a safe structured environment for students to engage in positive activities during after school hours, a potentially unproductive part of the students’ day, when youth are particularly at risk.

This is the first effort designed to help scholars scientifically measure the effectiveness of these two interventions. The MacArthur Foundation, Joyce Foundation, Chicago Community Trust, McCormick Foundation, National Institute of Health, Polk Brothers Foundation, Spencer Foundation and Exelon Corporation are among the organizations that provided funding for the $1 million program.

First Such Program to be Evaluated Akin to Clinical Trial in Medicine

The University of Chicago Crime Lab will evaluate the program using the most rigorous standards and scientific protocols, akin to a clinical trial in medicine—another area where lives are at stake.

The University of Chicago Crime Lab was launched in April 2008 in partnership with the City of Chicago, with the goal of developing a portfolio of rigorous experimental evaluations and benefit-cost analyses to identify the most cost-effective ways of addressing the major social problems facing the nation’s cities.

“This study recognizes the ability for sport to be a powerful tool in the positive development of our youth,” said Patrick G. Ryan, chairman of World Sport Chicago. “We are proud to be a part of this pioneering program and commend all involved for collaborating in such a positive way for the benefit of our youth.”

“We must being willing to hold ourselves accountable when it comes to offering programs and services to our city’s young people. We need to know if our intentions and our actions are achieving results. That is why Youth Guidance is grateful to be partnering with a world-class research team to evaluate one of our most promising programs,” said Vivian Loseth, executive director of Youth Guidance.