Gateway Community Services' Violence Intervention and Prevention Project began working with schools and community organizations in Ingham, Eaton, and Clinton Counties in 2003.

The goal of the Violence Intervention and Prevention Project is to promote peaceful, thoughtful, and non-aggressive means by which young people can learn to channel and communicate anger and frustration.

Aggression is a learned behavior

Gateway's Violence Intervention and Prevention Project utilizes Aggression Replacement Training (ART).

Underlying Aggression Replacement Training is the idea that every act of adolescent aggression - in school, at home, in the community - has multiple causes, both external and internal to the youth.

The rationale behind the ART program is to arm the youth with the tools needed to act in constructive and non-aggressive ways in their school, home, and community. ART accomplishes this through Skillstreaming, Anger-Control Training, and Moral Reasoning Training.

Skillstreaming involves using such learning techniques as role-playing, rehearsing, and acting out desirable behaviors and responses.

In Anger-Control Training, youth are encouraged to share descriptions of recent anger-arousing experiences through journal entries and group discussion and, over the course of the program, are trained in how to respond effectively in these stressful situations.

Moral Reasoning Training is a set of procedures designed to enhance the youth's sense of fairness, justice, and concern with the needs and rights of others.