Connecting to Community: Violence Prevention Barriers, Geography, and Preventionist Perceptions of Community Leadership and Opportunities

Background and Purpose: Violent crime is underreported in rural areas and violence preventionists in rural communities often experience barriers to delivering relevant and timely violence prevention services. Further, isolated communities receive limited funding and violence preventionists experience challenges engaging other social service organizations in interorganizational collaboration. Community resources, community relationships, and organizational leadership facilitate service delivery in urban and suburban communities, however, relatively little is known about how rural geography and barriers to service provision relate to preventionists’ perceptions of community opportunities and the quality of organizational leadership. As such, the current study examined violence preventionists’ barriers to service provision (i.e., internal organization logistics, coordination of services within communities) and geography in relation to their perceptions of community opportunities, and leadership quality (i.e., representative/influential leadership, level of commitment).

Methods: As part of a statewide assessment of violence and prevention efforts, 130 violence preventionists were surveyed using panel and snowball sampling. Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted in Mplus Version 8.1, and models were evaluated on the chi-square, RMSEA, and CFI. The resulting latent variables were then utilized in a full structural equation model. Three variables were controlled for: preventionist age, if they lived in the area they serve, and if they were an organization leader (e.g., Associate Director) or provided direct services to clients (e.g., Home Visiting Specialist, Victim Services Specialist).

Results: Rural geography was associated with fewer community opportunities (B = -0.36, p < .01), lower levels of representative/influential leadership (B = -0.27, p < .01) and leadership commitment (B = -0.25, p < .01), and increased service coordination barriers (B = 0.25, p < .05). Across geographic locations, coordination barriers were negatively associated with community opportunities (B = -0.67, p < .01), representative/influential leadership (B = -0.53, p < .01), and leadership commitment (B = -0.57, p < .01). Logistical barriers were positively associated with leadership commitment (B = 0.33, p < .01). Overall, the model fit was adequate: ꭕ²(426) = 608.58, p < .001; RMSEA = .057; CFI = 0.913.

Conclusions and Implications: Findings suggest the need for technical assistance to improve community coordination, and support for rural prevention work more broadly. Interorganizational collaboration and relationships within the community can be beneficial to organization functioning and help connect clients with services. Despite this benefit, rural violence preventionists often face challenges maintaining relationships outside of their respective organizations. Resources such as increased funding for violence prevention in rural communities, trainings on service delivery and utilization in rural communities, the culture of rural communities, and interorganizational collaboration in rural areas may help to support the work of violence preventionists in rural communities where resources are limited.