Charlotte, N.C. – The Alternatives to Violence team held its first ‘Meet and Greet’ community event of the year recently on the Charlotte, N.C. Beatties Ford Road Corridor.
ATV, is a collaboration with the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), Inc., and Cure Violence Global (CVG), that launched in August 2021 in response to reducing violence in the Beatties Ford Road Corridor. YAP administers the program using the CVG model, which uses methods and strategies associated with disease control to detect and interrupt conflicts; identify and treat the highest risk individuals and change social norms.
“ATV is a direct pipeline to community resources and real change,” said ATV Site Supervisor Earl Owens. “ATV can provide assistance to an individual or a family when they are threatened with violence or when they feel as though violence is close to them.”
YAP, a national nonprofit in 32 states and the District of Columbia, has a 46-year history of providing community-based alternatives to youth incarceration, out-of-home child welfare, behavioral health, and intellectual disabilities placements.
ATV’s meet and greet event provided community members with masks, hand sanitizer, educational information, food and fellowship. In addition to Owens, the entire ATV team which consists of two outreach workers and two violence interrupters, were joined by Fred Fogg, YAP’s National Director of Violence Prevention.
“Hopefully now the community can see us physically and don’t have to wonder who are those people walking those streets in the afternoon,” Owens added. “Now they know who we are, who we represent and how we can help.”
ATV is supported by Wells Fargo and the Greenlight Fund. Learn more about YAP at www.yapinc.org.
