What is a Violence Interruption Program?
Violence Interruption Programs (VIPs) are a proven strategy for preventing gun violence by interrupting interpersonal violence, mediating conflicts to reduce the risk of escalation, changing norms around community violence to create a culture of non-tolerance, teaching non-violence conflict resolution skills, and tackling underlying risk factors of gun violence through resource navigation. Anne Arundel County seeks to bring this model to the neighborhoods experiencing the highest levels of interpersonal gun violence as part of a coordinated strategy to reduce violence incidents, injuries and deaths.
In August 2022, CVG conducted an assessment with partners, stakeholders and community members in Annapolis City neighborhoods. Their assessment determined that our community would be well-suited to implement a VIP using the CVG model. The Department of Health hosted community listening sessions in Annapolis neighborhoods experiencing the highest levels of gun violence to assess community interest in the program. Through this process, Eastport was selected as the target neighborhood that the program will serve. The County Executive’s Office has funded the Department of Health to pilot this site.
Why start a VIP in Anne Arundel County?
Gun violence is a public health issue on the national forefront with more than 20,000 gun deaths reported in the United States in 2021. Anne Arundel County is not immune; in 2022 the county lost 13 lives to gun homicide and 15 lives to suicide by firearm. Over 100 individuals visited county hospitals after suffering from a gun injury and there were over 650 gun-related crimes throughout the county. A VIP would interrupt these incidents of violence and work towards preventing new ones.
Anne Arundel County will implement a VIP at one neighborhood site in Eastport. The Department of Health released a bid for funding in fall 2023 to identify a suitable community-based organization (CBO) to lead the program. A review panel of city, county and community leaders scored applicants to determine the CBO best-suited to run the VIP site. The selected CBO will establish a physical space for the program in the target neighborhood, hire a team of staff and track funding expenditures and program measures. Staff will include a project manager, supervisor, violence interrupters and community outreach workers. The selected organization will also receive support from the county to get started including consultant hours from CVG, overhead for the site’s office, posting and hiring staff, technical assistance and onboarding training, and operational funds to host violence prevention events in the community.
Latest News
Kingdom Kare, Inc has been selected to lead the violence interruption program in Eastport in partnership with local organization A Glimpse of Paradise. The program will apply the Cure Violence Global model for reducing community gun violence using a public health approach. After hiring and training staff, the program will begin offering services to the residents of Eastport, including:
- Youth mentorship and programs
- Connection and referrals to community services
- Interpersonal conflict mediation
- Violence incident response
- Community events
About the Grant
The Violence Interruption Program Grant opportunity accepted applications through October 13, 2023. Proposals were reviewed by a panel that included city and county government, the Department of Health, representatives from the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis, Cure Violence Global staff, and several community members from Eastport.
The community-based organizations were selected based on their alignment with the following eligibility criteria:
- A credible and trusted partner with strong ties to Eastport, Annapolis.
- Able and willing to recruit, hire and work with individuals with criminal histories or who come from the groups in conflict in the target area.
- Experience of managing grants, contracts and producing detailed reports on a regular basis.
- Organizational capacity to support and supervise staff and to provide fiscal oversight.
FAQ
The Department of Health hosted two pre-bidders conferences on September 15th and 25th.
Applicant Eligibility
Q: Is this grant looking for one organization to apply or is there an opportunity for organizations doing different aspects of this work to apply together?
A: Ideally we are looking for one organization to apply. It is acceptable for multiple organizations to apply together, but the organizations will have to work with the Department of Health to determine how to disperse the funds.
Q: Is this funding opportunity open to for-profit organizations?
A: This funding opportunity is open to not-for-profits, non-governmental agencies.
Q: Is there an organization currently filling in this role?
A: There is not currently an organization serving as a violence interruption program in the Eastport community.
Application Requirements
Q: Should the applicant mention prevention strategies to demonstrate their understanding of the Cure Violence model?
A: Prevention for a violence interruption program would happen at a community level. The organization would be less focused on upstream activities to prevent violence and more on immediate efforts to get ahead of real-time violence and target the current highest risk individuals. There is a question prompt in the application requirements that asks the applicant to describe their understanding of the Cure Violence model and how they can implement it. In this section the applicant should note their capacity to implement the prevention and intervention activities of the model.
Training and Implementation
Q: How involved with Cure Violence Global be in this process?
A: The selected organization will receive ongoing technical assistance to ensure the model is implemented with fidelity. The Health Department and Cure Violence will meet on a routine basis during training and implementation. Training and technical assistance is covered through the Department of Health so applicants do not need to include that in their budget.
Q: Is this a seven day, twenty-four hour operation?
A: This program will operate when violence is most often to occur. Staff hours are to be determined. May be weekends or evenings so that staff can be out when community members are out and active. The organization needs to be able to accommodate that level of flexibility.
Q: Will Cure Violence do safety training for site employees?
A: This is a part of the Cure Violence onboarding training for staff.
Q: Can organizations who are not selected as the grant awardee still participate in the Cure Violence trainings?
A: The staff trainings will only be open to the organization selected for the grant. This is to ensure that the Cure Violence model is implemented fully with fidelity, which requires staffing and activities that go beyond the onboarding training.
Q: Are mental health services provided to neighborhood residents under the Cure Violence model?
A: Relationships built with other organizations will be key to provide wraparound services. Cure Violence is focused on violence interruption, but outreach workers providing case management will link residents with mental health services at local agencies. Staff will not provide or pay for those services themselves, but they will be responsible for connecting residents to those services and following-up to ensure they were able to access them.
Q: Will training include technical training as well as an overview of the Cure Violence model?
A: Cure Violence will provide onboarding training to the organization and there will be a point-of-contact made available to the organization. Staff will be fully trained: violence interrupter and outreach worker training, program management training, and the database training.
Q: Is there a list of what charges are or are not allowable for hiring staff?
A: To reach the highest risk individuals, the organization should seek to hire individuals hire individuals who may have been exposed to violence but has shown a lengthy separation form that sort of lifestyle. There is general guidance in the RFP around hiring requirements. Part of the requirements for the organization will be to write up a hiring policy prior to beginning to solicit for staff positions.
Data
Q: What is the software that will be used for collecting and storing all of the program site data?
A: Cure Violence uses a specialized, confidential system to store data with a log-in. The information collected is not shared out to other agencies; it stays internal to the organization, select Department of Health and Cure Violence staff. Cure Violence will provide training to the selected organization to onboard them to the data portal.
Q: Once the community-based organization is selected, is the database and training included or does that need to be an added to the budget?
A: The database and training will be provided to the selected organization. It does not need to be added to the budget.
Future Funding and Sites
Q: Is there going to be funding beyond year one?
A: Currently funding through this grant will go through the end of 2024. Additional funding will depend on the success of the Eastport site and the availability of funding sources.
Q: Are there plans to do another site in the Annapolis area?
A: The goal would be to establish additional Cure Violence sites around the county, contingent on the success of the Eastport site and the availability of other funding sources. The location of any subsequent sites would be decided by identifying where the highest levels of gun homicides, injuries and youth gun violence are happening throughout the county.
Q: If there are additional Cure Violence sites, would they be led by one community-based organization or several in the different areas?
A: The Cure Violence model utilizes a different community-based organization to lead each individual site. Each site is run by its own organization and hires its own team of staff. The different sites can network and coordinate, but leadership falls under an organization who has credibility in that neighborhood block.
Q: Are there certain organizations in mind for any future potential sites?
A: The county does not have a particular organization or location in mind for any future sites. Right now the focus is on supporting the Eastport site to be successful so that this program can grow to additional sites in the county. The Health Department is looking for the strongest applicants that will best meet the criteria to set the program up quickly.
Who is Cure Violence Global?
For more than 20 years, Cure Violence Global (CVG) has successfully worked to reduce violence in some of the most violent communities in the United States and around the world, advancing a public health approach for preventing violence. This approach is grounded in an understanding that violence can resemble an infectious disease. It can spread through households, workplaces and other public spaces. It is carried on through social norms and peer reinforcement, and it can be prevented using disease control methodology.
In neighborhoods with a CVG site, trained staff called violence interrupters and outreach workers prevent violence by identifying and mediating potentially lethal conflicts in the community. They follow up to make sure that the conflict does not reignite. Whenever a shooting happens, trained workers immediately mobilize in the community and at the hospital to cool down emotions and prevent retaliations – working with the victims, friends and family of the victim, and anyone else connected with the event. Workers also identify ongoing conflicts by talking to key people in the community about ongoing disputes, recent arrests, recent prison releases, and other situations and use mediation techniques to resolve them peacefully. Workers follow up with conflicts for as long as needed, sometimes for months, to ensure that the conflict does not become violent.
Impact of CVG Nationally:
| NYC | Philadelphia | Chicago | Baltimore |
| 63% reduction in shootings and a 50% reduction in gunshot wounds | 30% reduction in the rate of shootings | 31% reduction in homicides and a 19% reduction in shootings | Reduced killings up to 56% and shootings up to 44% |
* This data is specific to neighborhoods where Cure Violence was implemented in New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore.
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