"Sometimes, you can look at the headlines and feel like this is a problem we're never going to wrap our arms around, but that's not true," Sarah Ott, chief strategy officer for the City of Davenport, Iowa, tells the Quad-City Times.
That's why police, social services, community leaders, and volunteers are working together to combat gun violence in Davenport with a new strategy called Group Violence Intervention.
The strategy, which was adopted in Davenport last year, aims to reach people at the highest risk of violent offending or victimization with a message of "we want to see you safe, alive, and out of prison," per a press release.
Since the strategy was adopted, more than 70 at-risk individuals have been contacted and only three have gone on to be involved in gun violence, according to the press release.
With a $300,000 grant from the Quad- Cities Community Foundation, the strategy will be rolled out in Davenport over the next three years, reaching out to every person known to have actively engaged in violence in Davenport in the past three years.
The goal is for everyone involved to convey the message that the violence must stop and to make a sincere offer of help, setting the stage for Family Resources to provide those victims or offenders highly...
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