County gets grant for new effort in anti-violence

Violence would be addressed almost like a disease outbreak under a new Allegheny County Health Department initiative fueled by a $500,000 grant from the Heinz Endowments and announced Tuesday.

If all goes according to plan, the county will hire a violence prevention coordinator next month, and start building an advisory board.

Some time after, a street outreach team would start work preventing conflicts. A trauma response team would swoop into areas affected by violence, to shore up psychological and emotional wellness. Shooting plagued neighborhoods could even get micro-grants to support home-grown ideas.

Although violence isn’t technically contagious, it does tend to beget more violence, and that’s why it should be treated

as something more than a series of isolated incidents, noted health department director Karen Hacker.

“It’s a different communicability,” Dr. Hacker said. “People respond in certain ways when [violence] becomes the norm. … Trauma impacts how people think and how people react.”

The county’s Department of Human Services and the Pittsburgh government are expected to collaborate on the effort, which will focus on around five or six neighborhoods, both in the city and in suburbs.

The county’s homicide rate in 2014 was nearly double the national rate, and increased again in 2015 to 9.3 per 100,000 people.

In 2014, a 24-member Public Health Commission on Preventing Violence and Promoting Community Mental Health reported to Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald. The Heinz Endowments grant will fund implementation of recommendations in the report.

The question that appealed to the Heinz Endowments, according to its senior program officer Carmen Anderson, was this: “How do we begin to be supportive and caring about people — young people particularly, our children — so that they are not impacted long term by the devastation of violence?”

In Boston, where Dr. Hacker previously worked, anti-violence efforts involved policing, but also coordination with many other facets of society.

The new county effort aims to pull in community groups, faith organizations, governments, police and schools. Strategies used in New York City, Chicago and other cities will also be considered, she said.

The health department is inviting people who want to join the Violence Prevention Community Advisory Board to call 412687-2243.