Milwaukee County Advance Peace Fellowship Initiative

Milwaukee County will enhance and expand its Advance Peace Peacemaker Fellowship with the support of the Community Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CVIPI) to become an ongoing prevention-based service. The purpose of the project is to utilize responsive strategies to achieve high-impact outcomes for individuals who participate in urban gun violence. The project's primary activities include some of the following touchpoints of the Peacemaker Fellowship: 1) multiple daily contacts; 2) life management action plan (LifeMAP); 3) social services navigation support; 4) Elders Circle - Intergenerational Mentoring; 5) transformative travel; and 6) internship opportunities. Expected outcomes include: 1) completion of a needs assessment and Violence Reduction Strategic Plan developed by the multi-disciplinary CVIPI team; 2) addition of a field coordinator position within the subrecipient agency; 3) addition of a violence intervention specialist within Milwaukee County; 4) completion of intensive services to two cohorts of twenty Fellows each; and 5) a significant reduction in gun-related injuries or hospitalizations and firearm-related charges.  

The service area is Milwaukee County; the target area is the neighborhoods that experience the highest rates of gun violence, specifically the zip codes of 53206, 53209, 53210, 53216, and 53218. The intended beneficiaries are the Fellows, who are mostly Black males ages 14-24 who are at the highest risk for involvement in firearm offenses. The subrecipient is the Milwaukee Christian Center and subrecipient activities with CVIPI support will include the addition of a field coordinator; providing case management services, life skills/cognitive behavioral development training, social service navigation, and LifeMAP support; and participating in monthly multi-disciplinary CVIPI team meetings. The criteria that will be used to evaluate risk include: Gun Violence (individual is/was a target, victim, participant in gun violence, group based violence, or family member of a homicide victim); Social & Economic (housing instability, low educational attainment, child welfare, chronic unemployment, or social services involvement); Justice System (arrest history, juvenile justice involvement, under supervision or previously incarcerated, has an incarcerated parent); and Strengths & Assets (charismatic and influential to peers, artistic talents, marketable skills, will to change and think critically).