UBalt, City to Launch Community Violence Interruption Certificate for Safe Streets Employees
July 20, 2023
Contact: Office of Advancement and External Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
The University of Baltimore and the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE) have entered into an agreement to launch a Community Violence Interruption Certificate for employees of Baltimore's Safe Streets program. The certificate will feature a curriculum developed by faculty in the University's College of Public Affairs' Negotiations and Conflict Management program and UBalt's Schaefer Center for Public Policy.
As reported in The Baltimore Sun, the city's Board of Estimates unanimously approved a contract between MONSE and the University on July 19.
The curriculum will focus on topics such as analysis of conflict, mediation, intervention, trauma-informed practice, and deescalation, and will reflect the needs of local communities where efforts are underway to intervene and resolve problems that lead to gun violence. The program is expected to be launched in this fall.
"For 25 years, the University of Baltimore's Negotiations and Conflict Management graduate program has sought to disrupt cycles of violence and mitigate the destructive aspects of conflict through applied teaching and research," says Ivan Sascha Sheehan, associate dean of the College of Public Affairs and former director of the Conflict Management program. "I am immensely proud to see the leading scholars in our Conflict Management program partnering with the William Donald Schaefer Center for Public Policy to make a difference in Baltimore City. Public engagement is what distinguishes our College of Public Affairs, and this important new certificate is an outstanding example of the impact that higher education institutions can have when they leverage their expertise to address important social concerns like gun violence."
The Sun notes that John Hopkins University evaluations indicate that Safe Streets sites "are associated with decreases in fatal and nonfatal shootings, both in target areas and the area immediately surrounding the sites."
Updates on the initiative will be provided by MONSE officials.