FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 17, 2026

 

Contact:

Barry Johnson
Email: [email protected]
Cell: 609-414-8890

 

End Community Violence Now Announces Partnership with Cure Violence Global (CVG)

CVG will offer training to ECVN and local community-based partners to address gun violence as a treatable disease

WILMINGTON – Today, End Community Violence Now (ECVN) announced that it is partnering with Cure Violence Global (CVG), the Chicago-based nonprofit committed to eliminating community violence through the use of methods and strategies associated with epidemic control. CVG will provide its highly sought-after training and technical assistance programs to ECVN staff and Delaware-based community organizations located in all three counties (New Castle, Kent, and Sussex) to interrupt the cycle of violence.

 

Since 2000, CVG has supported violence prevention and intervention efforts in more than 100 communities across 15 countries. A September 2025 study published in the “The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing” found that the Cure Violence approach is an effective strategy in reducing shootings and killings. Implementation of this approach has led to a 75 percent reduction in killings in Charlotte, a 90 percent reduction in killings in Culiacan, Mexico, and a 63 percent reduction in shootings in New York City among other successful interventions.

 

“Delaware has experience with the Cure Violence model, but the conditions we are facing today are different,” said ECVN Executive Director Lauren Footman. “As violence patterns evolve – particularly with emerging challenges in rural communities – we must continue to adapt and strengthen our approach. This partnership allows us to lean more fully into a public health framework that treats violence as a preventable and interruptible disease. Just as important, Cure Violence Global brings ongoing technical assistance, training, and a commitment to rigorous data tracking that will help ensure our community-based partners are equipped with the tools, support, and accountability needed to sustain progress. Together, we are building a stronger, more coordinated statewide ecosystem that supports those at highest risk and helps communities across Delaware remain on a path toward lasting safety.”

 

 

The Cure Violence approach treats violence as a treatable disease and seeks to cure it through the use of evidence-based public health epidemic-reversal strategies. With this strategy in mind, CVG supports partners in detecting and interrupting potentially violent situations; identifying and reshaping the thinking and behavior of individuals who are the highest risk transmitters (those most likely to engage in violence), and changing group norms that support and perpetuate the use of violence.

 

“Ending violence requires more than a single program; it requires strong people, strong partnerships, and the infrastructure to support them,” said Dr. Monique Williams, CEO of Cure Violence Global. “We’re excited to work alongside End Community Violence Now and community leaders across Delaware to strengthen the workforce and strategies that make violence prevention possible. Our goal is to ensure the people doing this work every day have the training, tools, and ongoing support they need to interrupt violence and help communities move toward lasting safety.”

 

Over the next six months, CVG will offer ECVN and Delaware’s violence prevention and intervention ecosystem with the following trainings:

● Management Training: Interruption & Outreach: conducted to impart management-level staff with critical knowledge, skills, strategies, and insights specific to managing a health intervention, frontline staff, strategic recruitment and deployment of staff, building a strong team, creating a positive work environment, enforcing accountability, mobilizing the community and shifting community norms that perpetuate violence.

● Violence Interruption and Reduction Training (VIRT): developed for outreach workers, violence interrupters, and other administrative staff. It includes a mix of presentation of core concepts and skill development through demonstration and practice.

● Outreach Worker Training: designed to build upon the initial VIRT curriculum with a specific focus on developing the clinical skill sets of the frontline staff and their supervisors. It addresses all aspects of the lifecycle of work with the participants from a trauma informed lens including understanding behavior change in the context of street outreach, initial engagement and recruitment of participants, clinical skills and tools for ongoing engagement, motivational interviewing techniques, assessing participant readiness, goal setting, risk reduction planning, resource navigation, documentation of outreach activities, long term management of participant caseloads, and outreach worker specific self-care.

● Training and Coaching Calls: Ongoing support will be provided through regularly scheduled conference calls with ECVN and the community-based partners. These calls are intended to monitor program implementation, provide team support, and address management and administrative aspects of the work

Additional information on Cure Violence Global can be found online.

 

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End Community Violence Now (ECVN) is the state of Delaware’s community-based Office of Violence Prevention. This public-private partnership seeks to break the cycle of violence through coordinated and sustained investments in evidence-based programs. This includes community engagement and education campaigns, policy advocacy, stakeholder strategy, as well as offering technical assistance and grant-making support to local organizations on the

ground doing the difficult, but necessary work. ECVN envisions a future where all Delawareans are safe from the rising threat of gun violence.

 

Cure Violence Global (CVG) is a nonprofit public health organization dedicated to ending violence globally. One of the pioneering institutions in the community violence intervention (CVI) field, CVG has spent more than 25 years refining and spreading evidence-based approaches to violence prevention, and today stands as a best-in-class provider of training, technical assistance, and organizational capacity building for community-based organizations across the United States and around the world. CVG’s core strength lies in building the capacity of local partners to deliver effective, sustainable programming, from hotspot analysis and program design to workforce development, governance support, financial sustainability planning, and continuous coaching. CVG has worked with 81 communities across 26 U.S. cities and 52 communities in 11 Latin American cities, CVG has trained a generation of CVI professionals, many of whom are now leaders in the field. For more information, visit CVG.org.