KINGS AGAINST VIOLENCE INITIATIVE INC
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Mission Statement
Kings Against Violence Initiative, Inc. (KAVI) is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) youth-serving organization with a mission to prevent and eliminate interpersonal violence from the lives of young people through advocacy, peer leadership, community mobilization, and social justice. We use a medical and public health approach to the problem; viewing violence as a disease that infiltrates, infects and sickens communities. In this way, we seek to address the symptoms of violence, while also drilling down to uncover and address the underlying causes and influences. We work on many levels – our programs support and strengthen young people while also improving organizations, communities and institutions, and, lastly, shifting cultural, social, and gender norms.
About This Cause
Each year, KAVI works with nearly 1000 youth who have been impacted by violence. Many of our youth come to us through the emergency room at Kings County Hospital Center. We also have school-based and community-based programs for youth who are at increased risk for involvement in violence. We help young people avoid the endless cycle of violence by supporting their healing and recovery and helping them build socio-emotional competencies and leadership skills. KAVI programs are grounded in public health principles, trauma informed practices, promotion of community resiliency and redefining social norms about violence. We work in partnership with schools, community organizations, businesses, and local leaders to provide a variety of empowerment, educational and supportive programs aimed at reaching youth who are at-risk or past victims of violence. Our programs focus on helping youth who have been impacted by violence to recover, rebuild and plan for a successful and meaningful future. Unaddressed trauma from violence can have profound negative impacts on the mental health and behavior of young people and linger into adulthood, impairing their capacity to be successful. We operate our programs in three areas: schools, the community, and hospitals. Violence Prevention in Hospital Settings – KAVI originally began as a hospital-based violence intervention program at Kings County Hospital Center. KCHC is a Level I trauma center resulting in a high volume of pediatric and adult trauma cases. While ED physicians, nurses and other hospital staff provide the immediate care and address urgent needs of youth and their families, KAVI staff provide crucial follow-up services and ongoing support to address the underlying causes, trauma associated with injury, coping support for patients and wrap around services needed to help young patients recover, build resiliency, and move beyond the trauma of their experience. Our hospital-based program includes providing specialized training of medical and hospital staff on working with high-risk youth, engaging parents, helping youth improve self-efficacy, and helping them change their understanding and shift norms about violence. We refer youth to mental health services, when needed, and work closely with various departments within the hospital system to provide workshops and support groups. Violence Prevention in Schools - KAVI began offering violence prevention and interruption programs in local high schools, in response to the high numbers of youth being seen for intentional injuries in the KCHC Emergency Department. Many of the youth seen in the Emergency Department had self-reported risk factors that were high for engaging in future violent activity. As a result, we began working with Wingate Educational Complex in 2009 to provide prevention services in-school. Initially, we offered workshops to provide youth an opportunity and “safe space” to talk about the issues and influences that led to violence and to consider alternatives. Our school-based program has grown and evolved into a formalized, 35-module, group-level intervention. In 2015, we began shifting our framework to take a deeper look at the reality of violence by exploring the various ways youth were experiencing violence through race, gender and other structural issues. This led to the inclusion of modules on social justice, restorative justice and trauma-informed care to our curriculum. These additions have provided an opportunity to for us to address the deeper psychosocial impacts of violence with our youth. • KAVI Kings was the first program we offered – it is a leadership development support group that students attend weekly at school. It is provided at Wingate Educational Complex and Eagle Academy. Kings is rooted in the Black Male Achievement framework with the hopes that supporting young men of color to achieve and avoid violence. KAVI is intentional about having groups supported by men who positively support our youth as mentors and facilitators. The program encourages and supports young men to rise to their potential. • KAVI Queens serves young women at our partner high schools and was developed to address violence among young women – a real problem that has long been overlooked in the past. The goal of KAVI Queens is to reduce and prevent violence among young women by addressing their unique social, emotional and behavioral health needs. The experience of violence and aggression is very different for young women and different interventions and approaches are needed. Many of our KAVI Queens members explore this difference and often dissect the issues of structural and relational violence. Enrollment of young women has increased significantly over the last few years and we know that more programs are needed. Violence Prevention in Community Settings – Our Community Violence Prevention Programs seek to strengthen and grow our linkages with members of our Central Brooklyn community as well as the SUNY Downstate/KCH Medical community in order to inspire community-level violence prevention and interruption activities. One component of our Community Programs is KAVI Young One’s (KAVI YO) which provides middle school youth with after school programming and support. We coordinate the provision of free tutoring and educational support services to help our youth excel in academics. We also added a peer leadership program that allows us to hire youth living in the Central Brooklyn communities where we focus our work. All youth participants that participate in school, community and hospital-based programs are assessed and offered behavioral health support, mentoring; advocacy services; tutoring, after-school program referral; job training and placement; and parenting education and support. A few years ago, we begin conducting the Community Healing and Recovery Program and, working in partnership with the Restorative Justice Institute. We are providing Healing Circle workshops and trainings in the community. Healing Circles, which are grounded in the principles of Restorative Justice (RJ), are an effective way to address incidents of violence in communities and develop youth and community leaders who can use them in their own organizations and communities. Continuation of our Community Healing and Recovery Program is crucial for building community capacity to address violence and crime. RJ and Healing Circles are essential for building a foundation on which we can address social and racial injustice with purpose, peace and direction.