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In resource‐limited settings in Colombia, there is a lack of safe spaces for youth, with adolescent males being 10 times more susceptible to physical violence than females. Acknowledging the potential of community‐led sports‐based interventions, we examined how community fútbol (a.k.a. soccer or football) coaches in the Caribbean region of Colombia prevent youth violence exposure. By conducting in‐depth qualitative interviews with 13 community coaches, we explore how fútbol, recognised as the world's most popular sport, serves as a space and tool for violence prevention. Our mixed methods study employs qualitative interviews and social network analysis (SNA). The findings reveal that the community's vulnerability, including familial violence and drug use, has detrimental effects on children. Community coaches, positioned as trusted figures, strive to positively influence youth by instilling essential life skills. However, they face challenges such as resource scarcity, limited institutional support and financial difficulties. The coaches express the need to balance adolescents' socioemotional development and the competitive nature of tournaments (olympism). Moreover, a disconnection between community coaches and NGOs utilising Fútbol for Development stems from differing aims. We argue that collaboration between these two groups holds ample opportunities for mutual benefit and enhanced youth impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study analyzes individual and social network correlates of adolescent engagement in physical intimate partner violence (IPV) utilizing socio-centric data from a high-school population of 242 adolescents from rural Colombia. We studied self-reported victimization and perpetration for boys and girls. First, we used logistic regression to explore the relationship between adolescents' IPV engagement and school peers' IPV engagement, school violence victimization, and social network position, controlling for gender and age (N = 111). Second, we used social network statistical methods to investigate if there were more friendships of similar IPV status to the adolescent than expected by chance in their social networks. Our results show that the proportion of friends perpetrating physical IPV increased the probability of adolescents' IPV perpetration. Contrarywise, the proportion of friends experiencing IPV victimization decreased with the adolescent's own victimization. Being a victim (a status significantly more common among boys) was also associated with reporting perpetration for both genders. Furthermore, our results contradicted the social network literature, as we found no preferential ties among perpetrators/victims (e.g. adolescents do not seem to befriend each other by IPV engagement). Our study is unique to the global adolescent IPV literature given the scarcity of research examining physical IPV among adolescents in the context of both girls and boys in the context of their school networks. We also add to the understanding of IPV in the case of the global majority of adolescents with the highest rates of IPV victimization (living in low and middle-income countries). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]