COMMUNITY VIOLENCE AND CHILDREN ON CHICAGO SOUTHSIDE

THIS report summarizes a program of study on African-American children and violence conducted by a comprehensive community mental health cen ter on the southside of Chicago. The research, which looked at exposur e to violence, self-reports of aggression, and possible interventions, grew out of: (1) an awareness of the enormous amount of familial and extrafamilial violence in the black community; (2) clinical experience s that indicated that victimization and covictimization (i.e., victimi zation of close others) were often significant factors in the lives of the mentally ill; (3) a growing uneasiness, and indeed curiosity, ove r the extent to which children were witnessing these events and the im pact of this witnessing, particularly on their own levels of aggressio n; and (4) a belief that the integrity of the black community was bein g threatened by the violence and that solutions must be sought.