This brief provides guidance to communities that are implementing or are interested in implementing a model of hospital-based violence intervention (HVIP) with a Cure Violence (CV) strategy of violence interruption and street outreach.
Both of these program models, which use a health approach, have been evaluated and demonstrated their effectiveness. Together, these models address primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention; and they link communities and institutions in efforts to end violence. The guidance provided is based on interviews of practitioners in Boston, New York, Oakland, and San Jose. The goals of HVIP are to promote healing and reduce retaliation, re-injury, and criminal justice contact by working directly with victims of violence treated at local hospitals. For nearly 20 years, Cure Violence has worked to reduce violence in communities impacted by violence, advancing a new health paradigm on violence and a scientific approach to preventing it. This model advances an epidemic-reversal methodology to detect and interrupt potentially violent situations, identify and change the thinking and behavior of the highest transmitters, and change group norms that perpetrate violence. This begins with an analysis of violence clusters and transmission dynamics. It uses several new categories of health workers to interrupt transmission and change norms associated with the use of violence. An overview of model compatibility, including distinctions and overlap, includes discussions of the population served, staff, and services. Other major sections of this guide address the benefits of collaboration, models for collaboration, and guidelines for collaboration. 3 figures