Second-year Master of Public Policy student Rachel
Brash has been selected as the winner of the 2004 Abell
Foundation Award in Urban Policy for her paper "Youth
Violence Prevention and Reduction: Strategies for a Safer
Baltimore." Brash will receive $5,000 for her paper, which
examines a range of youth violence prevention options
currently being employed in Baltimore and other cities and
recommends a comprehensive approach to reduce Baltimore's
persistently high youth violence rates.
The award is sponsored by the Abell Foundation and
administered by the Johns Hopkins
Institute for Policy Studies.
According to IPS director Sandra J. Newman, "The
contest seeks to encourage fresh thinking about the
challenges facing Baltimore and provide an incentive for
promising undergraduate and graduate students to focus
their talents on the city's problems."
Brash's recommendations include close coordination
between police, parole officers and other service providers
for youth at highest risk of violence; regular home
visitation by nurses and paraprofessionals to improve
prenatal and early childhood care and reduce the chances of
child abuse; and school-based prevention programs,
intensive family therapy and targeted police patrols in
areas with high rates of violence.
The award is given annually to the Johns Hopkins
student who writes the most compelling paper on a pressing
problem facing the city of Baltimore. The contest is open
to all full-time students in any degree-granting program of
the university.
This year's submissions addressed a range of topics,
including reducing high infant mortality rates, preventing
the spread of HIV in prisons, lowering teen birth rates
among the city's Latina population, educational reform and
the use of standardized tests to measure educational
performance, and the impact of "zero tolerance" school
discipline policies. Competitors included graduate students
from the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Master
of Public Policy program as well as two undergraduates from
the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.
In selecting the winning paper, the judging committee
weighed the importance of the issue addressed, the quality
of the analysis and the creativity and practicality of the
proposed policy solution.
MPP student Brecht Donoghue received second place for
her paper "The Impact of Zero Tolerance School Discipline
Policies in Baltimore City." Honorable mentions went to
KSAS undergraduate Eric Ding for "Baltimore City Infant
Mortality: Leading Causes, Risk Factors and Policy
Solutions" and to School of Public Health doctoral student
Tilly Gurman for "Reducing the Latina Teen Birth Rate in
Baltimore City."
The winning papers will be circulated to relevant
policy-makers and opinion leaders and posted on the IPS and
Abell Foundation Web sites
www.jhu.edu/ips and
www.abell.org. This was the second year the award was
offered.
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