MANDEL SCHOOL
NEWS AND EVENTS

More than 120 people gathered to review the latest research and talk about new violence prevention initiatives in Cleveland. Social workers and community organizers mingled with youth violence experts to discuss the challenges they see every day, and the problems that plague neighborhoods, businesses and families.

Researchers from The Begun Center were on hand to discuss its collaboration with the Partnership for a Safer Cleveland and its STANCE Cleveland initiative. The prevention, enforcement and reentry program is designed to prevent violence and gang problems in Cleveland. The event last Friday followed the announcement of a $200,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which will help fund a collaboration that began in Cleveland in 2009.

Leaders also announced the establishment of the Louis Stokes Greater Cleveland Consortium on Youth Violence Prevention, an academic-community partnership named after the former northeast Ohio congressman. The consortium is designed to establish academic-community partnerships, identify community-research priorities, and develop long-term collaborative agendas in the area of youth violence prevention research. Stokes is a Distinguished Visiting Professor at MSASS and said he was honored to work with the researchers and collaborators that made it all possible.

"Nobody has to explain to me what violence is about, or what poverty is about," Stokes said. "I walked these streets to Central High School. I know what it's like to grow up among violence. That's why a program in our community can work to give these young people a chance. These are bright kids. If these kids had a chance, you would be able to see where they would go."

Begun Center Director Daniel Flannery, PhD, also talked about the value of ongoing work in the community. "Research continues to show us what can work to help young people deal with violence in their daily lives," he said.

"The consortium brings together our partners, including members of the community, law enforcement, providers, policy makers and funders so that we can address violence and its impact on such things as mental health, youth development and academic achievement," Flannery added. "We know that you cannot revitalize a community without making sure that the community is safe, where young people and their families can grow a garden, walk to school without fear, or sit out on their porch in the evening without the sound of surrounding gunfire."