Gun Violence and its impact on Children: Community strategies for prevention in Chicago

Background

Strengthening Chicago’s Youth (SCY) is convened by Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago to achieve its vision of making Chicago the healthiest city in the nation for children. Every day children are exposed to violence in their communities, schools and homes, and the effects of exposure to violence can last throughout a lifetime. This presentation will share lessons learned from working with a coalition on gun violence prevention policy in Chicago from 2012-2014.

Methods

SCY’s mission is to build capacity among stakeholders to connect, collaborate and mobilize around a public health approach to violence prevention—adopting consistent messaging about the preventability of violence, promoting use of evidence-based violence prevention strategies and fostering multi-sector collaboration—encouraging partnerships that strengthen existing efforts and benefit the children of Chicago.

Outcomes

Chicago now has the highest number of homicides in the US, and the lethality of the City’s violence is driven substantially by easy access to firearms. SCY actively works through its network to promote evidence-based, common sense gun violence prevention policies at the city, county, state and federal levels.

Conclusions

Gun violence prevention policy is often a highly controversial topic, and building a coalition and achieving meaningful change can be challenging. Yet the depth and breadth of the problem also offer opportunities for building a passionate multi-sector coalition.