News Release

CeaseFire receives $1.7 million grant to expand outside of Illinois

Grant and Award Announcement

University of Illinois Chicago

The Chicago Project for Violence Prevention at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health has been awarded a $1.7 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to expand the CeaseFire program to cities outside of Illinois.

"This grant recognizes that many cities around the country are struggling with violence and grappling with a lack of successful and specific intervention strategies to reduce shootings and killings," said Dr. Gary Slutkin, founder and executive director of the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention and research professor of epidemiology in the UIC School of Public Health.

The grant will support CeaseFire implementation in Baltimore, Cincinnati, and Newark, N.J. The cities, Slutkin says, were chosen due to high levels of violence and their strong desire to use CeaseFire's public health and epidemic control approach to reducing shootings and killings.

CeaseFire's violence prevention strategy combines community mobilization, outreach, faith leader involvement and police participation to reduce violence in the same way that other serious health threats -- such as AIDS and tuberculosis -- have been addressed.

The innovative program relies on clergy and community leaders -- including some former gang members with strong ties to high-risk individuals -- who work together to interrupt conflicts and to change behavioral norms in the community.

"We are changing the perception of what is expected or normal," said Slutkin, a former World Health Organization epidemiologist. "Violence is an epidemic that is beginning to respond to the same methods we have used before for reversing epidemics."

CeaseFire outreach workers have a unique connection and level of trust with the individuals who are committing these violent acts, according to Slutkin. They successfully mediate conflicts, prevent retaliations, and help people change their outlook and their direction.

In Chicago, police districts with the highest shooting and killing rates also have high rates of unemployment and poverty. CeaseFire workers connect individuals with programs and services to help them complete their education and obtain jobs.

After five years of research and development, CeaseFire was formally launched in 2000 in the West Garfield Park neighborhood in Chicago. In the first year, shootings in that community dropped by 67 percent.

CeaseFire is now operating in 16 neighborhoods in Chicago and eight other communities throughout Illinois through a partnership with the city and the state. The model has averaged a 42 percent reduction in shootings and killings in its first year of operation and up to an 82 percent reduction in shootings and killings over two to five years. The intervention has now been replicated 13 times and shows statistical differences when compared to comparison communities with similar rates.

The Chicago Project for Violence Prevention also received a three-year, $3 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2006 to develop a national CeaseFire partnership. The new funds further support the national roll-out.

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For more information about CeaseFire, visit www.ceasefireillinois.org.

UIC ranks among the nation's top 50 universities in federal research funding and is Chicago's largest university with 25,000 students, 12,000 faculty and staff, 15 colleges and the state's major public medical center. A hallmark of the campus is the Great Cities Commitment, through which UIC faculty, students and staff engage with community, corporate, foundation and government partners in hundreds of programs to improve the quality of life in metropolitan areas around the world.

For more information about UIC, visit www.uic.edu.


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