At Prevention Institute, our vision is that all people experience their full potential for health, safety, and wellbeing across the life course through thriving, equitable communities. Safety allows people to thrive and live fulfilling lives—it is freedom from violence and the threat of violence. Our work addresses multiple forms of violence (e.g., school, community, intimate partner, sexual assault, and child abuse and exploitation) and the relationships between them.
Violence is preventable, not inevitable. There is a strong and growing evidence base, grounded in research and experiential practitioner and community evidence that supports this fact. Changing the underlying conditions that contribute to violence—in homes, schools, and neighborhoods—prevents violence from occurring in the first place.
Prevention Institute engages leaders from housing, healthcare, and multiple other sectors at the local, state, and national levels and cultivates a systems approach to prevention that reduces the need for criminal justice intervention. Recognizing violence as a crucial prevention issue for health and equity, Prevention Institute has made a major commitment to helping cities devise comprehensive plans and strategies for reducing and preventing multiple forms of violence. By cultivating communities of practice such as UNITY (Urban Networks to Increase Thriving Youth through Violence Prevention) and Safety Through Connection, supporting policy and systems change, and providing strong technical assistance, Prevention Institute catalyzes momentum for safety.
Strategies for Youth and Neighborhood Centered (SYNC) Safety is a Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funded project designed to increase partnerships with community-based organizations (CBOs) that serve Black and Brown communities with inequitable risk for violence and educate the field about the role of public health in building safer communities.
PI worked with Big Cities Health Coalition (BCHC) and RTI International to promote the local adoption of a public health, community- and racial equity-centered model for gun violence prevention focused on improving data and changing narratives.
Prevention Institute worked with CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention on Uplifting Contextual and Experiential Evidence (UCEE) to illustrate the value and importance of contextual and experiential evidence alongside best available research evidence.
Prevention Institute’s staff participated on multiple advisory committees and working groups at the local, state, and national levels. In these roles, our staff provided guidance across topics like health equity, mental health, and community violence prevention to various national nonprofits, state governments, and policy advocacy groups. Through this work, we help to advance policy and systems change that is rooted in health equity and prevention.
Such groups include:
Prevention Institute staff shared our work and approach with practitioner audiences at conferences and webinars, including the Association of Black Foundation Executives Annual Conference, the National Association of County and City Health Officials Annual Meeting, and with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. PI also hosted a virtual teach-in, which launched PI’s new tool, The Timeline of Resistance.
Prevention Institute provided comprehensive support to the Riverside University Health System (RUHS) through coaching, technical assistance, and targeted training opportunities for public health staff, county leaders, and community partners. These efforts focused on enhancing community engagement strategies to prevent violence and promote safety. These efforts strengthened the internal capacity of RUHS staff in fostering meaningful collaborations with community partners.
Prevention Institute established Strategies for Youth and Neighborhood Centered Safety (SYNC Safety), a supportive community of leaders and community-based organizations (CBOs) at the forefront of addressing community violence. SYNC focused on building the capacity of Black- and brown-led CBOs to take a comprehensive public health approach to community safety and violence prevention.
In 2024, Prevention Institute further grounded our efforts in an affirmative long-term vision of the world we want to inhabit and strengthened our capacity to develop policy and narrative strategies that ask for what communities want and deserve.
Prevention Institute continued to steward Safety and Healing in Networks of Equity (SHINE). Formerly Safety Through Connection (STC), this initiative engaged five California collaboratives to address the root causes of domestic violence and promote safety and healing through systems, cultural norms, and policy change.
Uplifting Contextual and Experiential Evidence, a Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funded project, will identify best practices for integrating contextual (i.e., measurable factors in the community that may impact the success of a prevention strategy) and experiential (i.e., the collective experience and expertise of those who have practiced or lived in a particular setting, or lived experience) evidence into an accepted and institutionalized science base.
Join us in advancing health equity and community empowerment — get in touch today to support the Prevention Institute’s efforts.