CVIPI Expansion and Enhancement for City of Chicago

Metropolitan Family Services (MFS) through the Metropolitan Peace Initiative (MPI) is requesting $2,000,000 over the 36 month project period under Category 3 to expand the delivery of community-based violence intervention and prevention (CVIP) services throughout the city of Chicago.   MPI is a division of the larger MFS not-for-profit organization and is the administrative, operations and supportive services coordinator for Communities Partnering 4 Peace (CP4P) which convenes community-based and city-wide organizations to help heal Chicago communities experiencing the highest level of gun violence.   CP4P is a network of 16 community-based organizations (CBO) that are hyper-local and experienced in the delivery of violence intervention and prevention work whose mission (as convened by MFS MPI) is a framework that provides a comprehensive, long-term approach to reducing violence and gang activity among the individuals and communities it serves.  

MFS MPI in collaboration with other invested stakeholders and partners who are working together to reduce violence in Chicago have established P.A.V.E. (Power to Anti-Violence Employees) Advisory Committee in collaboration with Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to understand the human capital needs of the CVIP work within Chicago to support its growth and scalability.  The mission of P.A.V.E. is to collectively invest in recruiting, developing, and retaining the violence reduction workforce needed to achieve the goal of a more peaceful Chicago.   The critical nature of the CVIP work depends on front-line staff of Outreach Workers, Victim Advocates and Case Managers who respond to incidents of gun violence in the streets of Chicago to de-escalate tensions, mediate conflicts and provide needed access to holistic supports for victims, families and perpetrators of violence.  The Metropolitan Peace Academy (MPA) is the training center for MPI and citywide CVIP efforts which offers intensive and multi-disciplinary violence prevention training to professionalize the field of street outreach, build a citywide network, and enhance community capacity to reduce citywide violence.  MFS MPI with this grant will build on the existing work of P.A.V.E. Advisory Committee to expand offerings of the Metropolitan Peace Academy (MPA) to train new Outreach Workers and other CVIP front-line staff to meet the demand for CVIP services; as well as provide added social emotional and wellness supports for those CVIP staff who experience high exposure to trauma through their work on the front lines.