by Jamil Ragland CTNewsJunkie
HARTFORD, CT – The city’s new Office of Violence Prevention (OVP) is set to receive a $200,000 grant to further its work in coordinating violence prevention among multiple partners in Hartford, and to help support the decrease in violent crime in Hartford over the past few years.
Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam, OVP Director Chavon Campbell, and representatives of several partner organizations gathered Monday on the third floor of City Hall to announce the award. The grant is made available by a collaboration between the state Department of Public Health and the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center’s Injury Prevention Center.
Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam speaks to reporters and members of the public at City Hall on Monday, Oct. 7, 2024, about the city’s progress in reducing violence over the last several years. Credit: Jamil Ragland / CTNewsJunkie
The collaboration, in its second year, awarded 10 new grants this fiscal year to go with the eight grants awarded last year. Other recipients of the grants include the Stamford Police Department, the Ledyard Light Health District, Project Moo and others. The grants build upon initial funding that came from the American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.
“Public safety is about building better, stronger, safer communities where everyone is valued and seen, where trauma is healed, where we work together. And our Office of Violence Prevention is an investment in that,” the mayor said. “It’s an office we created to try to bring together all of the incredible partners we have in this community working on violence and corruption work. These people who are my heroes, who are out there, who are many of the first people that residents see when they’ve experienced immense trauma coming right out of the hospital or in their communities.”
According to Campbell, OVP will use the grant to hire communications staff which will increase community awareness of resources which already exist, attend meetings of partner organizations to learn about needs and establish better coordination between organizations. The grant will also be used to create a new resource guide and translate it into multiple languages, as well as create a digital map of where the greatest needs in Hartford are.
Campbell stressed the need for greater information sharing when it comes to preventing violence.
“The Mayor already talked about it, but one of the main things is to increase communities’ awareness of the resources and services that we already have,” Campbell said. “Another goal is to create a landscape for violence prevention organizations and resources, to uplift the organizations that are already doing incredible work, and to make sure that we can identify any gaps to figure out how to make sure that we’re strengthening our communities as much as possible.”
Jackie Santiago, CEO of the Compass Youth Collaborative in Hartford, talks about using grant funds to improve collaboration between the many organizations dedicated to violence prevention in the city during a news conference at City Hall on Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. Credit: Jamil Ragland / CTNewsJunkie
Jackie Santiago, CEO of Compass Youth Collaborative, celebrated the grant for laying the groundwork for better collaboration. Compass Youth Collaborative is also a recipient of one of the grants.
“Since violence is a multi-pronged issue, we need everybody at the table in the city of Hartford offering the services that they do in order to make sure that we can create safer communities,” Santiago said. “And so I am excited about the fact that Compass will be a part of this, but more excited that we’ll get to see what the resources are and collaborate more intentionally with all the partners that exist throughout the city.”
Kevin Borrup, Ph.D, director of the Injury Prevention Center at CT Children’s Medical Center, described the benefits that violence prevention work can have.
“We know that by investing in community programs it can make a difference, that prevention efforts have great value,” Borrup said. “You know, as an example, these kinds of efforts avoid the direct costs from alignments like medical care. They avoid the indirect costs like lost wages, criminal investigations and incarceration. And they leverage a network of agencies in an efficient way to get funds where they are needed most. They advance good solutions that address multiple problems at once and they prevent suffering in lives lost.”
Kevin Borrup, Ph.D, director of the Injury Prevention Center at the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, talks to reporters and members of the public at City Hall on Monday, Oct. 7, 2024, about how violence prevention efforts both directly and indirectly make a difference in people’s lives. Credit: Jamil Ragland / CTNewsJunkie
The grants will help city leadership continue to drive violence, especially gun violence, down. Mayor Arulampalam and interim Hartford Police Chief Kenny Howell recently shared that gun violence is down in the capital city so far this year. The number of shooting victims in Hartford has decreased since 2022, and 2024 is on track to have the lowest number of shooting victims since 2006, the earliest year for which data is available.
Hartford launched its Office of Violence Prevention in April, while a similar office has existed at the state level since 1993.
Research from the Stanley Center for Peace and Security shows that offices of violence prevention, and violence prevention programs more broadly, can be effective in reducing violence in urban areas through a wide range of options.