Akron Reporter

Akron, Ohio — At Mayor Horrigan’s 7th annual Health Equity Summit, the City of Akron unveiled an updated Youth Violence Intervention and Prevention Strategic Plan. The overall goal of the plan is to reduce the number of violent crimes committed by Akron youth ages 13-24 by 10% from 2023 to 2028. The plan’s strategies are based on the recognition of the need for intentional, systemic coordination of existing resources and new efforts to maximize the effectiveness and sustainability of youth violence prevention programs and services.

Akron’s Call to Action For Organizations, Businesses, Residents, and Beyond:

1. Donate: To help fund this effort, visit the United Way of Summit and Medina to donate towards Bold Goal 2. Click the link here or call 2-1-1.
2. Volunteer: Sign up to be involved with one of the 8 approaches in the Strategic Plan and help the city implement each step. E-mail Denico Buckley-Knight DBuckley-Knight@akronohio.gov to learn how to become involved.
3. Learn More: Read the updated Strategic Plan here to learn more about the city’s plan and efforts, and view the slide deck from The Health Alliance for Violence Intervention to learn more about hospital-based violence intervention programs.

“We all want our community to be a safer place, but this can only happen if we are coordinating and aligning our local resources for generations to come,” said Mayor Dan Horrigan. “I applaud the efforts of our Youth and Community Opportunity Director, Denico Buckley Knight and Crystal Jones, former Executive Director of Project Ujima, who co-led the efforts in revising the Youth Violence Prevention Strategic Plan. I believe this updated plan is more ambitious in its reach and is better grounded in the area of evaluation than its predecessor, which will lead to more measurable impacts for our youth and our community.”

The plan focuses on 8 key strategies:

• Mentoring
  • One-on-one and group mentoring services targeted to youth and young adults ages 13 – 24, including those who are incarcerated.
• Recreation and Discretionary Time
  • Programs to provide positive, safe recreational and social activities for youth and young adults.
• Re-entry Support 
  • Support services to help formerly incarcerated youth and young adults get their lives back on track and avoid recidivism, including support services for re-entry into school or job training, adequate employment, housing, help re-establishing family connections, disconnecting from negative influences, and mental/behavioral health support and treatment.
• Police-Youth Relations
  • Initiatives to build and improve relationships of trust between youth, young adults, and the police.
• Mental Health and Substance Abuse Supports and Treatment
  • Targeted support to youth and their families who are struggling with mental health and substance abuse issues.
• Gun Violence Reduction
  • Development and implementation of strategies to reduce young people’s unsupervised and unrestricted access to firearms.
• Community Awareness and Involvement
  • Development of processes and structures to promote awareness and generate sustained community participation in the collective work of preventing youth violence in Akron.
• Workforce Development and Livable Wage Employment
  • Training, job placement, and coaching for out-of-school time employment for youth and livable wage employment for young adults.

“Back in 2019, the strategic plan had little to no funding, only the goodwill and commitment of the steering committee to implement its recommendations,” said Denico Buckley-Knight. “Thanks to American Rescue Plan Act funds, the city has now been able to fund a ‘boots on the ground’ approach, acknowledging that community-based providers have the best opportunity to fully engage with youth in their neighborhoods. As we continue to implement the strategies outlined in our updated plan, I encourage our community to get involved and lend their support to help resolve this problem which impacts all of us.”

The City’s Violence Intervention and Prevention (VIP) grant program has so far funded 39 local organizations who are focused on the 8 strategies to reduce violence.

Progress towards reaching the goals of the 2023 updated Strategic Plan will be measured by ongoing evaluation of outcome measures, including rates of violent crime for youth ages 13 to 24. The selection of additional program outcome measures is being determined in collaboration with the strategic planning committee and with input from the funded organizations. Program outcomes will be strength-based (e.g. assets, academic achievement) and deficit-based (e.g. school discipline, crime).

Data for the outcome evaluation will be collected from Akron Police Department, Akron Public Schools, Project Ujima, the Out-of-School Time (OST) Network, Summit Education Initiative, Summit County Juvenile Court, and funded partners.

To learn more, read the full 2023 Youth Violence Intervention and Prevention Plan here.

Original source can be found here.