The Mental Health of Black Youth Affected by Community Violence: Family and School Context as Pathways to Resilience

Donte T Boyd,Kristian V Jones,Camille R Quinn,Ed-Dee G Williams,Adrian Gale,Husain Lateef

doi:10.3390/children9020259

Abstract

Black youth who experience community violence occupy multiple environments with varying levels of influence on how they display resiliency to prevent adverse mental health outcomes. Considering the recent rise of mental health concerns (i.e., increase in suicidal outcomes) among Black youth, along with the abundance of research illustrating the detrimental impact of community violence, more research is needed to examine how different environmental factors (e.g., family and school) shape how youth protect their mental health while displaying resiliency navigating community violence. The purpose of this study was to examine how family and school contexts predict Black youths’ ability to display resiliency to navigate community violence and prevent adverse mental health outcomes. This study utilized a path analysis to examine the associations between parent relationships, parent bonding, school climate, resilience to adverse community experiences, community violence, and mental health among 548 Black adolescents in Chicago. Findings highlight that parent relationships, parent bonding, and school climate influence the association between resilience to community violence and mental health outcomes among Black youth. Implications for mental health practice and policy among Black youth are discussed.

Highlights

Today, Black adolescents in the United States grapple with unique contextual and structural hurdles specific to their generation, including the rise in racial unrest due to police brutality against Black people, terrorism, crime, racism, poverty, and a global pandemic [1,2,3,4]
The present study examines how the family and school contexts influence how Black youth display resilience to protect their mental health when grappling with community violence
Findings from our study indicate that the influence of parent relationships and school climate are prominent regarding the mental health of Black adolescents

Summary

Introduction

Black adolescents in the United States grapple with unique contextual and structural hurdles specific to their generation, including the rise in racial unrest due to police brutality against Black people, terrorism, crime, racism, poverty, and a global pandemic [1,2,3,4]. Mental health struggles of Black youth in the United States have been a cause for even greater concern. Black youth often experience community and neighborhood factors (e.g., neighborhood poverty) that disproportionately put them at risk of being exposed to contextual factors that can have detrimental effects on their psychological wellbeing [7,8,9]. Research demonstrates that Black youth are more likely to live in low income and underresourced communities that puts them at risk of being exposed to community violence in their neighborhoods [10,11,12,13,14]. Researchers have found community violence to be associated with detrimental mental health outcomes for youth [15,16,17]

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Findings

Conclusion