CDC Community Violence Prevention
Evidence-informed strategies include economic supports, safe environments, youth and family supports, street outreach, hospital-based intervention, and community-justice partnerships.
Open CDC strategy guidance →LOCAL PROGRAM STARTER GUIDE
Build a prevention system around the problem your community actually has.
A practical, evidence-oriented starting sequence for residents, nonprofits, hospitals, educators, public-health teams, service providers, and responsible government partners.
Conceptual editorial image—not an existing Paterson coalition, service network, public agency, or partnership.
Immediate danger or violence in progress: call 911.Suicidal or emotional crisis support in the United States: call or text 988.
- Define and monitor the problem.
Use legitimate local sources to understand who is being harmed, where, when, and under what circumstances. Do not turn risk factors into accusations about individuals. - Map existing capacity.
Identify street outreach, hospitals, schools, behavioral health, victim services, youth programs, credible messengers, public health, law enforcement, housing, and community organizations already operating locally. - Choose the correct strategy.
Community shootings, interpersonal retaliation, suicide, domestic violence, school safety, and targeted mass violence require overlapping but different expertise and interventions. - Create accountable governance.
Name decision owners, safeguarding and privacy rules, referral pathways, training requirements, data limits, evaluation measures, and a way to correct errors. - Start small and evaluate.
Pilot education or service coordination with qualified partners. Measure reach, service connection, implementation quality, and unintended harms without claiming that website traffic proves violence was prevented.
Download the readiness checklist Download the convening workbook
OFFICIAL STARTING RESOURCES
Use established guidance before inventing a new model.
CDC Public Health Approach
Define and monitor the problem, identify risk and protective factors, develop and test strategies, and support widespread adoption of what works.
Open the four-step approach →Group Violence Intervention
Official implementation guidance describes a partnership among community voices, social-service providers, and law enforcement focused on the small groups driving serious violence.
Open the implementation guide →Violence Prevention Project Research Center
Hamline University's center provides public datasets, publications, training, and prevention-oriented research concerning mass violence and related forms of homicide.
Explore VPPRC research →These references do not imply affiliation, endorsement, partnership, approval, or review of GVRP.
CONTROLLED PUBLIC-EDUCATION PREVIEW · REVIEWED AUGUST 3, 2026
This page is available for source review and qualified critique. It is not certified training, operational threat assessment, a reporting portal, or an active local service. Practitioner, targeted-violence, safeguarding, legal, evidence, and accessibility review remains pending. References do not imply affiliation, endorsement, partnership, sponsorship, approval, or review of GVRP.