Community-led violence prevention

Conduct outreach through credible messengers: When staffing the program, leaders should hire influential individuals with strong roots and credibility in the community for outreach and violence interruption roles. Individuals with lived experiences similar to those at high risk for violence are often most effective at building long-lasting relationships with participants. They can also help ensure the program reflects local assets and needs. Program leaders should be prepared to train and support these individuals, recognizing that they might lack experience in a traditional workplace, particularly if they were formerly incarcerated.

Multiple pathways for relentless engagement: Successful programs develop robust referral systems through community members, partner organizations, and/or predictive data analysis. Programs should train staff to be persistent in their outreach, recognizing that the groups or individuals at highest risk for violence might be the most difficult to engage. Repeated attempts at recruitment through multiple channels may be needed to persuade high-risk individuals to take advantage of programs and services.

Formal cross-sector partnerships: Community-led violence prevention initiatives are often key elements of a broader local strategy to reduce violence. An increasingly common way to institutionalize cross-sector collaboration is through Offices of Violence Prevention (OVPs), which can be established at the state, county, or local levels and are often administered through the local health department, the Mayor’s office, or another local administrator. These offices or departments can enhance community-led work through funding, coordination, and capacity-building. Partner organizations should meet regularly to share information, review lessons learned about effective approaches to reach high-risk groups, and analyze data to understand what’s working and where.

Interventions rooted in behavioral science: Research shows behavioral science can effectively reduce violent behavior by helping individuals self-regulate in stressful situations. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a behavioral science approach that helps individuals regulate their thinking and lead with measured, rather than impulsive, responses. Rigorous studies have shown that mentoring and coaching that incorporate CBT methods can effectively reduce violent behavior.

Clear safety protocols: Community-led programs often engage with individuals or groups at a high risk for participating in violence. To ensure the well-being of program participants, staff members, partners, and community members, program leaders should develop clear safety protocols and procedures. This can include providing off-site or private workspace or transitional housing for participants who have received threats, proactively monitoring for threats to participants’ safety, and de-escalating interpersonal conflict when necessary.

Trauma-informed service delivery: Witnessing or experiencing gun violence causes distress and trauma, which can impact other health, social, and economic outcomes. Historically underserved communities experience this trauma at disproportionately high rates. Research also shows that past victimization increases the likelihood of future involvement in violence – therefore, trauma-informed services, including mental health supports, are critical to breaking cycles of violence. Staff of community-based programs should be trained on trauma-informed methods to avoid re-traumatizing victims and support healing. The Trauma Recovery Center model offers an evidence-based approach to providing comprehensive, culturally-relevant services.

Take an asset-based approach: Many programs intentionally focus on participants’ assets, not deficits. For example, program staff with lived experience in a community (such as violence interrupters) might lack traditional workforce experience, but bring the unique influence and proximity needed to reach highest-risk individuals. As another example, programs with mentoring or therapy elements sometimes encourage mentors to focus on participants’ strengths and future goals, rather than dwell on their past justice system involvement.

Leverage relationship-based referrals to reach high-risk individuals: Programs must take care with how they define and identify high-risk participants to avoid unfairly targeting individuals and groups. Unfair targeting, or the perception of it, can damage trust and undermine a program’s future efforts. In general, predictive algorithms come with a risk of bias in their models, so algorithmic referrals should be reviewed by staff and partners with knowledge in the community. Research demonstrates a combination of human and algorithmic referrals yields better results than either approach in isolation, as community members bring contextual knowledge that predictive algorithms cannot account for.

Community-based organizations: Despite the variation in specific models, community-based organizations (CBOs) are always at the heart of community-led violence prevention initiatives. These organizations understand the historical context and root causes of violence in communities, and they often know the individuals most at risk and their families. In some cases, CBOs design and implement a culturally relevant program model. In other cases, CBOs work with a technical assistance provider, such as Cure Violence, to adapt and implement an evidence-based program model in their community.

Community members: Community-based organizations should engage residents throughout the program design and implementation to ensure the program is appropriately tailored for the community. Influential, trusted community members such as faith leaders can play an important role in helping programs build goodwill in the community and connecting them with high-risk individuals. Faith leaders can also help survivors and their families navigate the trauma associated with victimization.

State and local government: State and local governments can convene partners across sectors to develop and implement a shared strategy, including community-led initiatives as a key component. Government leaders should establish departments or offices dedicated to reducing violence, such as Offices of Violence Prevention. Multi-year funding commitments from state and/or local governments are also crucial to sustaining community-led violence prevention initiatives over time.

Health systems: Health systems can be involved in community-led violence prevention efforts in multiple ways. In some models, referred to as Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Programs (HVIPs), hospitals lead or support service delivery for survivors of violence. Public health agencies might help coordinate efforts across multiple partners through structures such as Offices of Violence Prevention. Clinicians can also educate community members about available programs, services, and safety best practices.

School systems: Some programs work in schools and/or with school-aged youth. Staff from these programs often partner with school administrators or educators to identify high-risk youth or connect with program participants.

Social service providers: High-risk individuals, survivors, and justice-involved individuals may need help accessing stable housing, food, or mental or behavioral health services. Social service providers, such as those that provide counseling or transitional housing, can help ensure these needs are met in collaboration with outreach workers.

Law enforcement: Although law enforcement is not centered in community-led violence prevention efforts, police can partner with community-based organizations to help identify individuals and groups at high risk of violence. Police departments also track and maintain data about violence that community-based organizations might use to inform their approach and assess whether their efforts are working.

Culturally relevant implementation: Jurisdictions should use evidence-based approaches such as Advance Peace or Cure Violence Global that incorporate persistent outreach, credible messengers, and violence interruption. While the key features of these evidence-based models apply across contexts, the intended audience, geographic focus, types of credible messengers, and high-priority services vary by community. Quantitative data can provide a foundation for understanding violence trends and patterns, and additional insights gathered through community outreach can help illuminate root causes of violence.

Persistent, long-term relationship-building: Building relationships with high-risk individuals, from the point of identifying them through helping them transition into the workforce, often requires persistence and consistent engagement. This approach acknowledges that some initial participants will leave the program and must be re-engaged, that some will participate in violence while enrolled, and that behavioral changes may take several years.

Adequately resource community-led initiatives: Local leaders should make sustained, multi-year commitments in community-led violence prevention to ensure that initiatives have sufficient human and financial resources to withstand changes in the political climate. Inadequate resources can hinder implementation and undermine the overall credibility of community-led initiatives. Staff needed will vary by model and community context (such as geographic size, population, and number of high-risk individuals), but key roles often include on-the-ground staff (in the Cure Violence model, each front-line worker typically has a caseload of 15-20), a supervisor to oversee day-to-day activities, a program manager or director, and an executive director. Larger organizations might have additional administrative staff, such as a development director or chief financial officer. Organizations must also budget for overhead costs such as physical office space and technology tools needed, including secure data storage platforms.

Ongoing professional development: Professional and leadership development programs can help prepare staff to deliver culturally relevant, trauma-informed services. Program leaders should also ensure that violence interrupters and other frontline workers are equitably compensated and supported, recognizing that many outreach workers work non-traditional hours and are exposed to trauma in their day-to-day work. Finally, program leaders can benefit from training and networking opportunities to help them plan for the program’s long-term sustainability, such as training on how to apply for grant funding, if needed.

Data-driven continuous improvement: When measuring the impact of community-led violence prevention efforts, quantitative data can illuminate trends in outcomes (such as rates of gun violence) by time of day, geography, and demographic group. However, information on preventive measures (such as how many mediations were conducted, with whom, whether they were successful, and why) requires violence interrupters to log qualitative data. Organizations should train and coach employees to ensure that data are collected regularly and consistently by different staff members (see this report for more guidance on data collection), while also adhering to data protection and confidentiality protocols. Programs can then use these data to understand what tactics are working, why, and how to continuously strengthen program delivery.

Number of mediations or violence interruptions conducted and percent considered successful: Recording details about mediation or violence interruption activities, including background information about the conflict and the techniques that were used, can help organizations pinpoint what’s working and why. Because these data might contain sensitive or personal details, organizations should establish secure data entry and storage protocols and be transparent with staff and communities about how the data are being used to improve the program.

Frequency of and year-over-year percent change in violence: Programs should track the total number of incidents of violence by type (including homicides and non-fatal shootings), as well as disaggregate these data by demographic group and sub-geography (such as ward or census tract) to understand patterns and where violence is most concentrated. Leaders can overlay these data with areas where violence interrupters are active to assess whether violence interruption efforts are having their intended impact, interpreting data with caution and keeping in mind that other factors also influence community-level outcomes.

Return on investment: Violence incurs real social costs (such as personnel and administrative costs related to arrest, prosecution, and incarceration) as well as opportunity costs (such as the unrealized earning potential of someone who is incarcerated). Although models for calculating return on investment vary, experts agree that benefits outweigh costs. For example, researchers estimate that the Safe and Successful Youth Initiative in Massachusetts yielded a cost savings of $5.10 for every dollar invested. Another evaluation of the READI program in Chicago estimates a benefit-to-cost ratio of at least 4 to 1 (and perhaps as high as 18 to 1) for each dollar invested.