The Baltimore City Board of Estimates unanimously approved a contract for the University of Baltimore on Wednesday to create and deliver a violence intervention certificate program for Safe Streets employees.
The $134,433 contract is partially funded by a grant from the Federal Bureau of Justice Assistance and the general fund of the Baltimore City Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, known as MONSE. The contract will cover program development as well as pre-launch promotion.
As requested by MONSE, the university plans to use the expertise of the faculty at its Schaefer Center for Public Policy to instruct Safe Streets workers on conflict analysis and management to create a curriculum that supports the organization and the community it serves best, according to Board of Estimates agenda documents.
The program’s curriculum will be unique to similar conflict resolution programs at other universities because of its focus on community violence intervention in regards to gun violence, said Stefanie Mavronis, MONSE’s interim director.
During MONSE’s 2022 internal evaluation of the Safe Streets program, MONSE interviewed staff members about how the city can best support frontline community violence intervention workers, said Jack French, MONSE’s spokesperson.
French said the contract was not prompted by the recent mass shooting in the city’s Brooklyn neighborhood, and was already in the works following the internal evaluation in 2022.
Safe Streets staff requested additional training to help them better fulfill their roles and responsibilities within the program model. French said staff also expressed a desire to have more pathways to facilitate career growth within and beyond the program.
In response to these requests, the organization set out to develop relationships with local academic partners such as the University of Baltimore to begin to create this training module. The training will not be required for Safe Streets employees but will be highly encouraged, said Crystal Miller, MONSE’s community violence intervention deputy director.
The University of Baltimore and MONSE will finalize the design and start to implement the program throughout the final stretch of the summer. MONSE’s community violence intervention and conflict mediation program staff will be able to participate in this training in the fall.
Safe Streets is a program under MONSE that has been around since 2007. The program uses violence interrupters like MONSE’s community violence intervention and conflict mediation program staff to spread anti-violence messages and encourage positive changes in individual behavior as well as community norms around violence.
Safe Streets sites are associated with decreases in fatal and nonfatal shootings, both in target areas and the area immediately surrounding the sites, according to evaluations from John Hopkins.
The training program will kick off its first phase with 20 participants, but MONSE will be expanding the program to other participants such as local faith leaders after a successful first phase, Mavronis said.
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