Study Outlines The Core Community Violence Intervention Models Every City Should Know When Launching A CVI Program. 

Researchers from Rutgers University’s Gun Violence Research Center and the University of Washington, published a new paper in INQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing, that helps bring clarity to the growing field of Community Violence Intervention programs. The authors reviewed 101 organizations and reports to map how the various community violence intervention programs take shape in cities across the country and found nine core styles of programs that can be deployed to help reduce gun violence:

1. Violence Interruption / Street Outreach: Includes “the use of credible messengers from local communities to engage with individuals at the highest risk of violence perpetration and/or victimization through preventative techniques geared toward community norm change… mediation strategies, and connections to social services.”
2. Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Programs: Provides “resources for people who have been violently injured. HVIPs aim to reduce the potential for retaliation and connect survivors (and sometimes their families) to resources.”
3. Group Violence Interventions: Targets “affiliates of certain groups known or presumed to be affiliated with violence and using small group meetings and/or individualized custom notifications…”
4. Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design: “Focused on modifying environments to deter crime… by creating green spaces, rehabilitating vacant lots, or installing lighting.”
5. Cognitive Behavioral Interventions: Provide “tailored cognitive or dialectical behavioral therapy interventions that encourage participants to shift framing, specifically around managing emotions, responding to conflict, and coping with prior traumas.”
6. Survivor Resources: Provides “resources and support to people who have experienced a direct or indirect injury or exposure to firearm violence, including families and friends of homicide victims… often focuses on grieving and healing.”
7. Mentoring Programs: Provides “intensive mentoring and peer fellowship programs that institute a mentor-mentee relationship… offering participants opportunities to identify and focus on specific goals to increase self-efficacy and confidence.” 
8. School-Based Interventions: “Programs that occur at schools and/or are related to school activities… aimed to provide a sense of safety and community for youth at school and via school-related activities.”
9. Diversion Programs: This “encompasses a wide range of firearm diversion programs and stationhouse adjustments… which aim to avoid formally charging youth and young adults with a crime and reroute individuals toward positive alternatives.”

Related: For Oaklandside, Roselyn Romero reports that the City of Oakland is launching a training academy to staff community violence intervention programs. “Oakland has a police academy and a fire academy, intensive training programs where cadets are given skills they’ll need to work as police officers and firefighters. In two years, it will also have a community violence intervention academy,” Romero reports. The city of Oakland’s Department of Violence Prevention is creating “a training program for violence interrupters, unarmed civilians who de-escalate situations and prevent retaliation after shootings and other forms of violence. The first training cohort will launch in 2027.”