Learning Best Practices for Interrupting Violence
Baltimore, MD – This month, violence interrupters from cities across the U.S. gathered in Baltimore for unique hands-on training (HOT) classes.
The trainees are employees of Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), Inc., frontline workers and leaders of programs designed to interrupt violence and/or help formerly incarcerated individuals safely transition back to their communities. The training sessions were led by international trainer, practitioner, and violence interdiction expert, professor Aquil Basheer of the Professional Community Intervention Training Institute (PCITI) in Los Angeles.
“Driven by our motto of keeping the ‘public’ in public protection — for more than 35 years, PCITI has provided intensive gun, gang, group intervention and peacemaking services throughout the U.S. and globally,” Dr. Basheer said. “As YAP partners with more cities to apply their time-tested wraparound services approach to decrease violence, we are honored to partner & offer and very much appreciate the significance of this national training in building a foundation for transforming public safety, justice and social services systems to be more effective and equitable.”
YAP is a national nonprofit in 32 states and the District of Columbia with a 46-year history of reducing recidivism and keeping communities safer by delivering effective, more racially equitable community-based services as an alternative to youth incarceration, congregate child welfare and behavioral health placements, and neighborhood violence. YAP combines evidence-based violence interruption approaches with its own evidence-based wraparound services model of hiring and training neighborhood-based Advocates and behavioral health professionals to deliver youth and family services that empower program participants with tools to see their strengths and achieve positive goals. Learn more about YAP at www.yapinc.org and follow the organization @YAPInc.
