Since 2014, ICS–affiliated staff members have directed the Youth Violence Prevention Coordinated Technical Assistance grant. With this program, we provide technical assistance to 39 sites, with the goal of reducing and preventing youth violence and supporting safe, healthy, and thriving children, youths, families, and communities. Violence happens in schools every day. Mass shootings receive news coverage, but a commitment to addressing violence in schools happens every day in communities across the country.
As we have worked with communities, we’ve learned that trauma from violence within the community impinges on communities’ abilities to respond and heal. The concept of community trauma can help all of us plan for responses to school violence that address both the acute and chronic conditions that created the space for violence within a community.
We have used the insights from the Prevention Institute and its work on Addressing and Preventing Trauma at the Community Level.
In a time of heightened awareness about gun and school violence, we continue to be honored to be a valuable partner with communities across the country. We learn more every day about what community members need as they heal from trauma and implement communitywide strategies to decrease violence.
Additional information about the Youth Violence Prevention Coordination Council can be found on its website. And you can learn more about the council’s work viewing the following video from the 2015 National Forum Meeting, where Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, spoke about the importance of addressing systemic violence:
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