Communities THRIVE through safety and social connection.

As we enter the holiday season, a time that can be both joyous and charged, we’re thinking about how communities can support safe relationships and freedom from violence and the threat of violence. And the evidence shows that strengthening the underlying social conditions that contribute to safety—in homes, schools, and neighborhoods—improves connection and helps to prevent violence from occurring.

Safety Through Connection (STC) launched in 2018 with support from Blue Shield of California Foundation (BSCF) to cultivate community-driven, place-based, culture and systems change for health equity, safe relationships, and domestic violence prevention. While STC’s collaboratives work on an array of issues—nutrition, physical activity, family support, and mental health—they also focus on promoting safe relationships. The STC collaboratives are:

• The Center at McKinleyville, led by the McKinleyville Family Resource Center
• Mujeres Poderosas Amorosas, led by Cultiva La Salud
• The East African Youth Collaborative, led by United Women of East Africa

Recently, STC convened in McKinleyville with the theme “Weaving Our Networks of Safety Through Connection.” Participants learned about addressing root causes of violence through culture and systems change; building community power to influence policies, systems, and funding streams; and healing colonial and gender violence through cultural revitalization.

Read more about their reflections on LinkedIn.

Read more about how we’re promoting community safety:
 
Prevention Institute partnered with the Santa Clara Health Department and the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in shaping a Cost of Gun Violence study to elevate gun violence as a preventable public health issue. The study includes local gun violence prevention policy and investment recommendations, and elevates community wisdom rooted in health equity and racial justice. Download the study.

Save the date (February 7, 2023, 10:00 AM PST) for a webinar sharing the lessons from the report. Register now.

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We worked with the CDC to update the Suicide Prevention Resource for Action. The resource includes strategies, approaches, policies, programs, and practices to inform suicide prevention efforts, including creating protective environments and promoting healthy social connection. Download the resource.

Updates from Prevention Institute:

Join us on Thursday, December 15, 10:30 AM PST / 1:30 PM EST to discuss emerging policy themes and opportunities to embed racial justice and health equity in public health policy and advocacy efforts. Register now.