City of Louisville's Youth Violence Prevention Plan
Background
The One Love Louisville — Youth Edition plan puts forth five goals aimed at reducing youth involvement, exposure and impact of homicides, shootings, and aggravated assaults using the balanced and coordinated PIER (prevention, intervention, enforcement and re-entry) approach.
The initiative is led by Louisville’s Mayor Greg Fischer and his Office for Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods (OSHN). The Center for Disease Control’s Public Health Approach to youth violence is utilized and the goals focus on increasing positive outcomes and coordinating efforts in five systemic areas.
One Love Louisville — Youth Edition serves as an addition to the strategic plan currently in progress and focuses on increasing positive outcomes for youth (0 to 24 years of age) who reside in Louisville Metro Police Department divisions 1, 2, and 4.
Local data illustrates that young adults (ages 18 to 30 years of age) lose their lives as a result of homicide more often than any other age group. If efforts are focused on youth 24 years of age and under, there is potential to reduce the number of youth who are exposed to violence, become victims of violence, or perpetuate violence.
Vision
A city of safe neighborhoods where all citizens feel secure, supported, and prepared for lifelong success.
Principles
Emphasis on Effectiveness and Efficiency: We can reduce violence by increasing and systematizing coordination and collaboration by forging new partnerships and combining resources.
Results Orientation: We commit to common results and indicators for the city as a whole, and the development of a schedule and method to track progress.
Target Resources: Resources will be found to fund OSHN projects and they will be directed to areas most affected by violence.
Representation: Everyone will have a role and a voice—increase resident and neighborhood engagement and build positive connections.
Engage Leadership: Champions from all of Louisville’s communities will be called to participate, influence, and impact the work.
Balance: We utilize an approach that balances personal accountability and mutual assistance in the following relationships: neighbor-to-neighbor, parent-to-child, government-to-resident, youth-to-community, and community- and faith-based-organization-to-member.
Goals & Objectives
One Love Louisville — Youth Edition highlights five goals that target three police divisions in Louisville: Divisions 1, 2, and 4. The OSHN’s approach to preventing youth violence is not separate to the approach for preventing overall community violence.
The goals and objectives aim to reduce youth violence by focusing on areas that impact the lives of our youth systemically. For Louisville youth, these areas are:
- Community Building
- Education
- Employment and Economic Development
- Health and Social Wellness
- Juvenile and Criminal Justice
Governance
Under the leadership of Mayor Greg Fischer and Chief of Community Building, the OSHN and the One Love Louisville Youth Implementation Team lead this effort by leveraging its convening power, dedicated staff and resources. The OSHN is currently staffed, full-time with a Director and Program Coordinator and has two unpaid internship opportunities.
The OSHN’s Director works to: bridge the work of violence prevention and response across 37 Metro departments and affiliated agencies; convenes the Advisory Committee; oversees the development of baselines; identifies gaps (and redundancies) in services; identifies best practices; cultivates key partnerships; identifies community and youth leaders; and oversees the communication strategy to accompany its release.
The responsibilities of the Program Coordinator consists of researching strategies and programs; conducting staff and community trainings; tracking reports; overseeing communications (on-line and written); facilitating community and governance structure meetings; and developing and maintaining a data collection system to monitor, evaluate, and report goal and objective progress.