Cohort 2021

Youth Advocate Programs

Guiding Violence Interruption Programs through Data Collection and Community Engagement

Charlotte, NC

In communities of color, residents are less likely to call the police when violence occurs because of long-standing mistrust of law enforcement. Pervasive systemic factors such as inequities in available resources and poor treatment and abuse from law enforcement fuel residents’ hesitancy to contact the police if help is needed. As a result, violence often goes unreported in the communities that experience it most, and this is especially true of gun violence. Incidents of gun violence where someone is shot but not injured or killed are typically not measured and recorded. This lack of data undermines community efforts to understand violence and promote healing from trauma.

With Catalyst Grant funding, Youth Advocate Programs has been working to automate its dashboard reports using PowerBuilder to provide operational measures in Charlotte and Dallas (a Charlotte suburb), increasing efficiency and usability because the data are now updated in real time. It also developed a data feed for Charlotte’s Cure Violence violence-interruption program, enabling it to track data over time and capture information such as referral outcomes. It plans to use Power BI to visualize the data. In addition, Youth Advocate Programs has developed a Microsoft Forms survey to use alongside its street outreach program. Community members and city governments will be able to use the form to report incidents of violence, enabling them to more efficiently track submissions. These innovations will be replicable in other sites as the organization’s work continues to expand.