Violence in high-risk neighborhoods within NYC has increased substanially over the years. 

To address concerns about this violence spreading, the city launched a Crisis Management System (CMS) in 2014. CMS uses a Cure Violence (CV) approach that relies on trained community-based violence interrupters (VIs) and outreach workers (OWs) to improve public safety and rebuild neighborhoods. Specifically, VIs and OWs work together to identify and prevent potential violent incidents in their communities and connect high-risk individuals to supportive resources, services, and opportunities.

Ten years on, the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity (NYCO) wishes to understand the program’s impact and to gather scientifically rigorous insights to guide current program implementation and inform future program design and resource needs.

NORC is utilizing a multi-tiered approach to evaluate CMS.

NORC is partnering with the NYC Department of Youth and Community Development and NYCO to design and complete a participatory mixed methods process evaluation of CMS. For this evaluation, we are applying the Inclusive and Equitable Research Framework™, culturally responsive and equitable evaluation methods, and a participatory action research approach. Administrative program data will be used to quantitatively report on performance measures—such as the use of referrals, wraparound services, and staff training—and to summarize program metrics, including the number of de-escalations, retaliatory shootings, and community events.

Concurrently, the project team will conduct in-person and virtual interviews and in-depth, in-person site visits with a subset of providers. We aim to document the perspectives, best practices, and challenges experienced by provider staff, program participants, and other community stakeholders. We will also interview wraparound service providers to better understand their technical assistance and capacity building needs.