Building Capacity for Safer Communities

During the COVID pandemic, the United States has seen an increase in violent crime and victimization that casts doubt on our ability to maintain the benefits of crime declines experienced over the past 25 years. Local governments and community organizations are increasing focusing on community violence intervention and prevention (CVI) approaches. CVI work brings together a wide range of community partners, from government agencies to nonprofits and residents, to identify their roles in violence reduction, coordinate among each other and form a comprehensive and holistic approach that comprises elements of both intervention and prevention. CVI programs are complex undertakings, relying on authentic community input, led by staff with very specific skills and backgrounds, depending on comprehensive and complementary partnerships, and demanding high-quality, engaged, and flexible TTA. LISC will work with BJA to support communities through the FY2022 Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CVIPI). As a Category 5 Capacity Building intermediary, LISC will select local grantees and provide grant funding and TTA to help them: partner effectively, engage community members and stakeholders, use data to inform strategy selection, and implement sustainable strategies integrated into comprehensive community revitalization efforts.

LISC Safety & Justice will work with each grantee site to assess their strengths and needs, tailor TTA to meet the needs, measure progress, and plan for sustainability. LISC will create and maintain a library of resources to help grantees as well as the larger community safety field understand topics such as how to form effective partnerships, how to select appropriate CVI strategies, and how to measure success.

Using expertise gained from serving as National TTA Provider to three Department of Justice programs (focusing on place-based community violence, rural violent crime, and school violence), LISC will deploy its Safety & Justice staff and contract with several subject matter experts (SMEs) with which LISC has existing relationships to serve the CVIPI sites. These SMEs include experts in street outreach, gun violence, and other topics.

As a result of LISC’s TTA, grantees will increase their ability form effective multisector collaborations to address community violence challenges, center equity, inclusion and community leadership, identify appropriate data- and research-informed solutions, and sustainably integrate CVI strategies into broader community revitalization plans.