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Community violence prevention leaders could expand their reach even further thanks to a new city training.
Community violence intervention (CVI) programs throughout the city focus on those who are most at risk of being a victim of or committing an act of gun violence.
Philly’s new program, The ‘Peacekeepers Institute,’ is an 8-week professional development program designed to strengthen the skills and wellness of local CVI practitioners, said Adam Geer, the city’s chief public safety director.
“It’s Philadelphia’s first institute of higher learning where we’re focusing on our folks who are out in our communities and in our streets, stopping violence,” he said.
The CVI practitioners are also known as “credible messengers,” or those often defined as having had lived experiences, often within the criminal justice system, who want to make community-wide changes. It’s important to note this definition can vary, based off of different interpretations from different groups.
To recruit participants, the city reached out to CVI’s who already had a relationship with the city and used those recommendations to build the program, Geer said.
“We asked [the organizations], ‘hey, who on your team are the folks who are rising stars, or who are the people who would really benefit from this next level professional development?,’” he said.
The program will include 25 emerging leaders.
Building on a strong foundation
In 2025, homicides in Philly dropped to the lowest level in 60 years. This also included a decrease in shootings, assaults and most other serious crimes compared to the prior year.
Community violence interruption groups are frequently credited for their work in helping these numbers decline. Many of these programs don’t just focus directly on the violence aspect – they also help Philadelphians find housing, employment and healthcare.
Geer said this program will build on that success.
“The work is working,” he said. “So how are we going to continue to support the work? I think higher education in an accredited program is a great place to continue to invest.”
The program is a product of the Roca Impact Institute – an organization that aims to disrupt violence by working through trauma and engaging young people, police and other systems to lead to change.
“They’ve done this in Baltimore and some other cities,” Geer said. “So, we’ve had some lessons learned from some other cities in terms of programming, and we expect this to be really top-notch.”
The program’s 8-week curriculum includes several targeted approaches – including learning methods for conflict mediation and de-escalation, training for Narcan and stopping the bleeding, and themed workshops on how to engage with adults in the community.
Geer said that measuring the program success will involve leaning into data collection.
“We’re doing some new things with data integration and just making sure that we’re able to understand and learn from all of our specific programming and offices,” he said. “So in general, we are very committed to trying to understand what works and what does not work.”
He said program partners he spoke with are excited and grateful for the opportunity.
“The notion that there is this investment that the city is making in them and in their work, in a lot of ways, it’s validating,” he said. “These are folks who aren’t thanked regularly for what they have been doing.”
As for the future, Geer hopes this program will continue to move forward. He sees it as a unique opportunity to continue to support these prevention programs.
“I think it’s really important to point out that we’re calling this an institute, and that’s for a reason,” he said. “We want this work to become institutionalized in our city, and in our communities. We want this thing to persist beyond just 5-10 years.”
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