Anti-Violence Initiatives

Anti-Violence Initiative
Miami-Dade County’s Gang Prevention Strategy is designed to reduce group violence and consists of four primary components:

  • Prevention
  • Intervention
  • Suppression
  • Re-entry

The Miami-Dade County Board of County Commissioners adopted the strategy’s recommendations in 2009, one year after the South Florida Anti-Gang Summit was held where 175 national and local experts and organizations gathered to address these issues.

Group Violence Initiative
Miami-Dade County’s Group Violence Intervention (GVI) Model is part of a national program that seeks to decrease gun related deaths.

Adopted by the Miami-Dade County Board of County Commissioners in March 2019, the GVI is designed to reduce:

  • street group-involved
  • homicide gun violence targeting group or gang-involved individuals at high risk of violence
  • retaliation instances

The GVI is also intended to offer group members substance abuse and mental health services, emergency relocation assistance, and other needed help.

This program is tied to the National Network for Safer Communities and John Jay College Group Violence Intervention. Miami-Dade’s Juvenile Services and Police departments joined local public safety agencies to learn about the program, which has been implemented in cities such as Baltimore, Boston, Chicago and New Orleans, and where gun violence has seen a reduction.

Hospital-based Violence Intervention Program Overview

Miami-Dade County’s Hospital-based Violence Intervention Program (HVIP) in partnership with Jackson Health System (Ryder Trauma Center) is a multidisciplinary program that combines the efforts of medical staff with trusted community-based partners to provide safety planning, supportive services, and trauma-informed care to victims of gun violence. HVIP continues to serve victims of gun violence after being discharged from the hospital to ensure successful entry into their communities and establish a support network with a pathway for outpatient care and other services. The HVIP team consists of a Registered Nurse, Licensed Clinical Social Workers, Master’s level Social Workers, and Ryder Trauma Center’s Data Coordinator. 
 
Key Components of HVIP: 

HVIP is a multidisciplinary approach that identifies patients at risk of experiencing repeat violent injuries and links them with a comprehensive system of care. Resources include hospital-based and community-based services aimed at addressing risk factors connected to gun violence. 
 
The HVIP model alters risk trajectories by operating at multiple levels of the social ecology: 

  1. Intervention: Brief intervention in the emergency department or at the victim’s hospital bedside.
  2. Care: Intensive, long-term community-based case management services.
  3. Follow-up Services: Crisis intervention, linkage to community-based services, mentoring, home visits, follow-up services, and long-term case management that are provided by culturally competent frontline social workers who are from the same or similar communities as the clients they serve.

For more information, contact Wayne Rawlins at the Miami-Dade County Juvenile Services Department at 305-755-6237.