An emerging youth‐centered model of community resilience in communities impacted by gun violence: Power through Black Community and Unity

Abstract

Studies commonly examine resilience as an outcome by way of measuring the degree to which protective factors maintain individuals' well‐being despite the presence of significant risk. In this study, we developed a model of community resilience that centered the voices of Black youth. Using data collected as part of a 3‐year, youth participatory action research project, we developed a model that focuses on what 11 Black youth perceive and believe contributes to community resilience through their investigation of problems and solutions related to community gun violence. Findings from a constructivist grounded theory analysis of multiple data sources (e.g., field notes, transcribed group discussions, youth photovoice activities) revealed our developing model of community resilience: Power through Black Community and Unity. Specifically, Power through Black Community and Unity was a core category that reflected the importance of care, support, and safety as strengths in the community's current response and resilience to gun violence, and future aspects the community could develop to increase community resilience to gun violence. This core category emerged in three subsequent ways: Collective Care, “Seeing Beyond the Bad,” and Supportive Teen Spaces. This study illustrates potential pathways that youth service agencies and community practitioners can consider enhancing in their programming to promote resilience in their communities.

“We been dying, and you got me on a call helping you stay alive”: Black and Latinx youth organizers' experiences of racism in gun violence prevention organizations

“…Gun violence-encompassing police violence, domestic violence, and other forms of community violencepredominantly impacts communities of color, and results directly from historic and compounding structural inequities and racism (Buggs et al, 2022). Many young people in communities affected by gun violence turn to organizing spaces to heal and mobilize for change (Grant et al, 2023). However, even social movements and nonprofit organizations purporting to support social justice efforts can reproduce structural racism, harming organizers of color, and hindering the movement's progress (Baldridge, 2020;Gorski, 2015Gorski, , 2019Gorski & Erakat, 2019;Jacobs & Taylor, 2012;James & Mack, 2020).…”

“…Gun violence tragedies including those in Parkland, Florida, and Sandy Hook, Connecticut, alongside a rise in youth's social media engagement (Pew Research Center, 2022), prompted the creation of national, predominantly youth-led organizing spaces to prevent gun violence that are coordinated both in-person and virtually (Carney, 2016;Rothschild, 2018). Community-based organizing spaces, particularly those where youth have leadership and agency, can be powerful sites of healing (Ginwright, 2007(Ginwright, , 2010Ortega-Williams, 2017), especially when they emphasize collective care and provide a space for shared racial understanding and identity in an effort to support young people's communities (Grant et al, 2023). However, national organizing spaces often transcend particular geographic, racial, and cultural communities and may also be places where young Black and Latinx organizers experience racism (Kulick et al, 2017;Ortega-Williams, 2017, 2021.…”

“…In developing a new model of community resilience with Black adolescents who had experienced community violence, Grant et al (2023) emphasized that youth felt a sense of care, support, and safety from their community's response to gun violence, particularly when adolescent-specific spaces for healing were created. In their study, youth described these community spaces in opposition to dominant societal narratives where communities such as theirs were stereotyped or ignored (Grant et al, 2023). Indeed, studies with Black youth show that a sense of working towards collective justice and healing is a powerful motivator for youth organizers (Ginwright, 2007;Hope et al, 2024;Ortega-Williams, 2017, 2021.…”

“…Historically, Black and Latinx youth have transformed their communities and shaped local and national policies through gun violence prevention organizing (Carney, 2016; Grant et al, 2023). Since the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013, Black and Latinx youth in community organizations have been leaders in changing societal narratives about gun violence and creating alternative solutions to policing.…”

A Time of Inconvenience

“…Of course, the impact of gun violence on youth goes beyond school mass shootings and is evident on the streets where children live and are growing up. An example of a youth-centered model of community resilience in the face of gun violence is the Power through Black Community and Unity project (Grant et al, 2023). This project was based on an emerging theory of community resilience and used innovative methods to examine the results.…”