PRELIMINARY REPORT COVER LETTER

I am pleased to send you the attached violence prevention document for your review. I am deeply concerned about the problem of violence in the county and committed to working with you to develop solutions. This represents one step in that process.

The attached synopsis is excerpted from a longer report called Toward A Lifetime Commitment to Violence Prevention in Alameda County: Background and Preliminary Recommendations. The report and synopsis were developed by Prevention Institute at my request because we know that violence -- in its many forms and across our county -- is literally shattering lives. It is time to take action in preventing it. These documents, and the larger process that they represent, were developed to build county-wide momentum to prevent violence. This synopsis and the report it summarizes are working documents that will be shaped and revised by the violence prevention advisory board.

In developing the preliminary report and accompanying synopsis, Prevention Institute interviewed about 50 people in Alameda County and at the State and reviewed key documents that would inform the process. With extensive experience in violence prevention at local, state, and national levels, that Institute then contextualized the findings with state-of-the-art knowledge about effective violence prevention practice and policy.

The attached synopsis is meant to provide a brief overview of initial findings and broad recommendations, which then must be shaped and defined to meet the specific needs of the county. Indeed, this phase, defining the problem, is the first of four phases in total. The remaining three are defining overall solutions, defining sectoral solutions, and building a strong implementation movement grounded in strategy. I, along with Prevention Institute, will be working closely with a county-wide advisory group throughout each of these phases. I anticipate that the county will have a blueprint for violence prevention in 2004 and that together, we will all be actively engaged in preventing violence in Alameda County.

Sincerely,

Nate Miley

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