The Boston Police Department and the City of Boston is proud to announce the awardees of the 2021 Senator Charles E. Shannon Community Safety Initiative.
The following organizations will be awarded funding for the calendar year 2021 in their efforts to support the City of Boston’s coordinated efforts in reducing youth and gang violence through collaboration and service provision.
YOUTHCONNECT – YouthConnect delivers a Social Intervention and prevention program, offering specialized services to youth and families delivered through licensed social workers in each Police District and in School Police offices.
YOUTH OPTIONS UNLIMITED – YOU Boston offers a comprehensive, multi-pronged approach to serving court-involved and/or gang-affiliated youth. Components include intensive case management, development of an individual service plan, academic support, HISET preparation, transitional employment and job training.
BOSTON CENTERS FOR YOUTH & FAMILIES – Boston Centers for Youth and Families\’ Girls Leadership Corps and the SOAR program provide youth jobs to young women each summer and 20 positions for Community sites to distribute during the summer when jobs are paramount to the success of young people.
BOSTON MEDICAL CENTER – VIAP -Provides violence intervention outreach to direct victims of violence. Provide direct services to all receptive clients including redirection, relocation education, job and life skills. Provide victims and Families with linkages to BMC\’s behavioral, medical, mental health, and substance abuse services.
JRI-MY LIFE MY CHOICE/STRIVE – MLMC utilizes Shannon funds to work in collaboration with BPD’s Human Trafficking Unit to provide survivor mentors to girls identified by BPD as having been commercially sexually exploited or at high risk of exploitation.
MISSIONSAFE – MissionSAFE seeks out and works with high- and proven-risk youth who are gang- or court-involved, failing in school, have behavior issues, experienced trauma, or have been thrown out of other programs.
YOUTHBUILD – YouthBuild Boston (YBB) is a nonprofit organization that provides opportunities for youth to build career and life skills via hands-on, innovative programing, leadership development, and service-learning approaches.
BOSTON PUBLIC HEALTH COMMISSION – BPHC’s Village in Progress Youth Organizing Institute is a peer leadership program that explores the roots of violence and ways to address them in three neighborhoods of Boston most impacted by violence (Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roxbury.
SPORTSMENS TENNIS ENRICHMENT CENTER – Sportsmen’s Tennis and Enrichment Center’s Volley Against Violence (VAV), a partnership between and the Boston Police Department that works to engage inner city youth in tennis, breaking down barriers and bringing a diverse group of youth from different neighborhoods together.
MOTHERS FOR JUSTICE AND EQUALITY – MJE Participants obtain sustainable employment and become a part of the solution as they are engaged in MJE’s community action initiatives. MJE provides gun violence prevention, intervention, treatment, and recovery services to young adults and youth both in the community and in prison.
ABCD – Future Protectors Initiative offers a paid internship for youth focused on criminal justice and emergency response services through a curriculum designed by Comm Corp. Using the Mass Career Information System and Urban College Boston courses, participants are exposed to the careers of those who protect and heal the city.
TEEN EMPOWERMENT – Teen Empowerment employees a total of 50-60 youth to work 8-15 hours per week to organize violence prevention initiatives for their peers and community members. They meet in themed groups: TE Studios arts program, Education, Media Creation, and Violence Prevention and Intervention. TE also provides one-on-one service referral and planning with youth in the Program and involves youth in community meetings and events.
HYDE SQUARE TASK FORCE – HSTF collaborates with community partners to engage youth in grades 8-12 through our Jóvenes en Acción/Youth in Action (JEA) program. JEA offers integrated programming in Education and Career Pathways, Afro-Latin Arts, and Civic Engagement and Youth Organizing that promotes youths’ success in school and in their future careers.
PROJECT RIGHT INC. – Project Right Inc offers an outreach worker for the Grove Hall/Roxbury neighborhood providing violence prevention and intervention to high risk youth. The outreach worker will target forty youth and assess needs, identify obstacles an strengths and refer them to appropriate intervention services, educational and employment opportunities.
BECOMING A MAN-YOUTH GUIDANCE – Counseling and character building intervention that utilizes counseling and character building intervention guiding young men to learn, practice and internalize social emotional skills and become positive members of the community.
SUFFOLK COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEYS OFFICE – The Juvenile Alternative Resolution provides individualized services to young people as an alternative to traditional prosecution.Working in collaboration with partners who could offer individualized services for a wide range of needs –the goal is to divert young adults outward, away from the criminal justice system, instead of upward and deeper into it.
COLLEGEBOUND DORCHESTER – College Bound Dorchester’s Boston Uncornered model, utilizes trained, trauma informed mentors (College Readiness Advisors) who are former gang members and use their shared life experiences to guide gang members from the corner and into college.
INNERCITY WEIGHTLIFTING – ICW’s mission is to reduce gun violence by amplifying the voice and agency of people who have been most impacted by systemic racism and mass incarceration. We partner with program participants through case management and careers in and beyond personal training. This year, we are forming relationships with local jails to bring ICW to the inmates, with the long-term goal of getting young men certified as personal trainers in the facility, so they’re prepared to enter the workforce when they re-enter society.
ROCA – Roca will utilize Shannon CSI grant funding to complete the intervention portion of our Social Intervention and Prevention Program in East Boston. Funding will specifically support intensive street outreach and case management for high-risk or gang-involved young men in East Boston, with the goal of reducing violence and incarcerations.
MORE THAN WORDS – More Than Words is a social enterprise that empowers youth ages 16-24 who are court-involved, in the foster care system, out-ofschool or homeless to take charge of their lives by taking charge of a business. Our model blends hands-on job training, positive youth development, intensive case management, and individual and systems-level advocacy to support young people in building safe, productive futures.
LOUIS D. BROWN PEACE INSTITUTE – The Louis D. Brown Peace Institute (LDBPI) offers crisis management services within our Survivor Outreach Services (SOS) Program for the majority of families impacted by murder, trauma, grief and loss within and around the city of Boston. With every family and client we serve, there is at least one young individual who has suffered from violence or trauma.
RFK CHILDRENS COMMUNITY CORPS – The Detention Diversion Advocacy Program (DDAP) is an alternative to court ordered detention, providing primarily youth of color with community-based support and supervision. Using intensive case management, establishing and using community partnerships and strong collaborations, maintaining youth in school, and working closely with families and/or caretakers. DDAP positively impacts the problem of youth and gang-related violence by connecting these youth and their families with pro-social, future-oriented programming in their home communities.