R-CITY: A Collaborative Intervention With Teachers and Youth

Modified Abstract Section ABSTRACT “R-CITY” refers to the Collaborative Intervention with Teachers and Youth to practice and apply the 4 “Rs” of social skills in the classroom – Recognizing, Responding, Relationships, and Resilience. R-CITY is a collaborative teacher- and youth-focused prevention intervention that offers student lessons to accompany the Second Step curriculum. The lessons are designed to create a safe and positive learning environment for all. The R-CITY Project uses a school-level randomized controlled trial (RCT) design to test the integration of the Second Step program that the school district had been scaling up district wide with the R-CITY lessons. The purpose of the RCT is to determine the “value-added” of the Second Step program plus the new skill content compared to the Second Step alone in elementary and middle schools. Students in both conditions get access to the Second Step content, as an active control condition. The study aims to test the R-CITY intervention in 27 elementary and middle schools. Specific aims are as follows: Aim 1 is to test the effects of the integrated R-CITY intervention on attitudes. Aim 2 is to test the effects of the integrated R-CITY intervention on classroom practices and teaching self-efficacy. Aim 3 is to test the effects of the integrated R-CITY intervention on student behaviors. Outcomes are assessed at pre-test in the fall and post-test in the spring, over the course of the school year.