Using Community Schools as a Hub for Promoting Personal Resilience and Neighborhood Empowerment with a place-based strategy that targets locations to deter future crime

The City of Little Rock (AR) proposal "Community Schools as a Hub for Promoting Personal Resilience and Neighborhood Empowerment” requests $1,000,000 to assist the students and families of Stephens Elementary School. The catchment area is a 3.5 square miles (2.5 % of total area) and impacts 12,546 within  zip code 72204. 
The project impacts census tracts 051190012; 051190013; 051190018; 051190019 and of those identified, Tract 051190018, is a Qualified Opportunity Zone. The target community falls within two previously funded projects a TIPS grant received in 2017 and a CGIC grant in 2019. The UA Team will work with crime analysts from LRPD to identify crime clusters and hot spots in the Target Community. Based on our Planning and Coordination efforts, we will use strategies that pertain to the School and Targeted Community as outlined in our Initial Action Plan. Goals Within the Target Community: (1) Reduce violence and gun-involved crime without significantly increasing arrest, (2) Increase community participation to problem-solve for local issues, (3) Increase participation between the residents, police, and stakeholders, (4) Increase social service referrals, (5) Increase targeted Street Outreach to at-risk population and high-violence streets. Goals Within the School:(1) Reduce in-school related disciplinary actions, (2) Align resources with needs for parents and students, (3) Develop a sustainable model within CSM for violence reduction and community involvement that can be used in other Little Rock Schools. The Target Community has disproportionate amounts of violence, calls-for-service, and worse health indicators than the city of Little Rock as a whole. The scope provides two (2) Full-time community social worker will be hired as part of the project.  Additionally, 25% time of a Little Rock grant coordinator will assist the social worker. We have identified current programs and practices within Little Rock that will be allocated in a targeted manner for our community (e.g., Street Outreach Team; OK Program, GEMS Program).