It’s been almost a year since the Chicago-based violence prevention organization Cure Violence Global completed a “pre-assessment” of Peoria and approved implementation of its program.
Since then, the organization and partners in the Peoria City/County Health Department have been working to find the right fit for two sites. The planned locations in Peoria’s East Bluff and South Side will serve as a center of operations for teams of locally-hired “violence interrupters.” You can read more about what violence interrupters do and how the Cure Violence Model works here.
Katy Endress is the director of epidemiology and clinical services for the Peoria City/County Health Department. She said work in the East Bluff is on pause, after partner organization Peoria Community Against Violence, or PCAV, dissolved last year.
“So we're pursuing, moving forward with the South Side focus area and implementing there in the meantime,” Endress said. “So we've entered a contract with House of Hope.”
House of Hope is a nonprofit run by Terry Burnside, a former PCAV chair. The group provides services like discussion groups and food pantries. The agency recently started a partnership with Live Free Illinois to be part of a “community healing” resource network.
Endress said House of Hope has partnered with the Minority Business Development Center to help support the financial piece of the program, adding House of Hope’s prior experience with violence prevention in the area will be critical to hiring Cure Violence staff.
“Terry has said he already has a list of people that he thinks will be a good fit for this program,” said Endress. “And, and that's really, really important. When you move forward, you want to find people that are the right fit.”
The hiring process also involves a full hiring panel, including representatives from law enforcement, local clergy and other areas of the community. Endress expects the training and hiring process to start in January.
There’s no exact timeline on how long the process could take.
“We would like to have this program up and running yesterday. But unfortunately, it's more important that we find the right people,” said Endress. “So we're going to, you know, have the hiring panel, for as long as it takes us to find the right people.”
Throughout the twists and turns of getting the program established in Peoria, Cure Violence Global has remained supportive, Endress said.
“So when we told them, you know, that we weren't able to move forward with East Bluff implementation anymore, because the organization we had contracted with lost their funding, they understood that and they, you know, they just came back to us with: ‘Okay, well, what's next?’” said Endress.
There’s no firm plan yet to return to the East Bluff. Endress said, for now, the project is “solely focused on South Side implementation.”
