Evaluating a School-based Social and Material Needs Identification System to Prevent Youth Violence Involvement

• Pathways to Potential (Other): Pathways to Potential stations MDHHS caseworkers, called success coaches, in local elementary, middle, and high schools. After identifying a social or material need that is a barrier to school attendance (e.g., transportation barriers, caregiver unemployment), success coaches connect students and families to community resources and public assistance.

Primary outcomes

• Peer aggression expulsions [Peer aggression expulsions will be measured for every academic school year from 2001 to 2022, possibly to 2024 depending on data availability]: The state of Michigan requires all public schools to report expulsions for all students to the Michigan Department of Education (MDE), including the incident type(s) which led to the expulsion. Expulsions are instances in which the local educational agency removes a student from their regular school for disciplinary purposes for the remainder of the school year or longer. The investigators will consider expulsions for peer aggression as expulsions which included any of the following: 1) firearm possession-handgun; 2) firearm possession-rifle/shotgun; 3) firearm possession-other firearm; 4) other weapon possession; 5) bomb or similar threat; 6) arson; 7) physical violence with injury, or; 8) physical violence without injury. For each school, the study team will calculate the total number of peer aggression expulsions per school year.
• Child maltreatment [Peer aggression expulsions will be measured for every academic school year from 2001 to 2022, possibly to 2024 depending on data availability]: The Michigan Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System (MiSACWIS) includes dates of investigations into child maltreatment, names of alleged victims, and date of birth of alleged victims for all child maltreatment investigations in the state of Michigan. Investigators will link the MiSACWIS data to individual student data from MDE that includes information on student name, date of birth, schools of enrollment, and dates of school enrollment enrolled schools. The study team will use this linked dataset to calculate the number of child maltreatment investigations per school per school year.
• Chronic absenteeism [Chronic absenteeism will measured for every academic school year from 2004 to 2022, possibly to 2024 depending on data availability]: A student is considered chronically absent if they miss 10% or more of school days in which they are enrolled at the school. For each school, the investigators will calculate the total number of students that were chronically absent via the data provided by MDE.

Secondary outcomes

• Firearm-involved expulsions [Firearm-involved expulsions will be measured for every academic school year from 2001 to 2022, possibly to 2024 depending on data availability]: In the state of Michigan, firearm possession on school grounds by a student requires the student to be expelled from the school. Expulsions for firearm possession on school grounds can be recorded as one or more of the following incident types: 1) firearm possession-handgun; 2) firearm possession-rifle/shotgun; 3) firearm possession-other firearm. The study team will consider any expulsions that included one of these types as a reason for expulsion as a firearm-involved expulsion. For each school, the study team will calculate the total number of firearm-involved expulsions per school year.

Sex: All, ages: 18 Years to any, accepts healthy volunteers

Administrative Data Inclusion Criteria:

* State of Michigan K-12 public school
* In person instruction
* Open to all students in District/area

Administrative Data Exclusion Criteria:

* Private schools
* Virtual learning
* Needs-specific schools

Survey Inclusion Criteria:

* 18 years of age and older
* Working as a Success Coach inside a Michigan K-12 public school during the data collection period

Survey Exclusion Criteria:

* Former Success Coaches
* Success Coaches not working inside a Michigan K-12 public school during the data collection period

• Study Protocol and Statistical Analysis Plan (PDF, 2023-11-21)

• Rebeccah L Sokol, PhD, Principal investigator, University of Michigan