Violence doesn’t start with behavior.
COMMUNITY VIOLENCE PREVENTION
Disconnection, stress, and unmet needs are felt far before we choose violence. Be Strong Families creates structured spaces where youth, caregivers, and community members can reflect, speak honestly, and take accountability for how they show up.
We don't lead our Community Violence Prevention work with control or compliance. We start by addressing what was missing in the first place — connection, reflection, and intentional conversation. This builds trust and awareness, shifts peer norms, and creates conditions for lasting behavioral change because they choose it.
Be Strong Families has grounded this work in community violence prevention since our earliest days — beginning in some of Chicago's most underserved neighborhoods and expanding to reach communities most burdened by gun violence today.
Our approach is grounded in Protective Factors and the YouthThrive framework, and brought to life through real, facilitated dialogue that meets people where they are. We don't come in as outsiders with answers. We build alongside communities — with respect and consistency.
Real prevention means addressing the roots of violent behavior, not just the surface.
OUR APPROACH
Where we focus:
Youth and emerging adults — especially those who have been adjudicated or are at elevated risk
Parents and caregivers — because when they are supported and equipped, they show up differently for their kids
Communities most impacted by violence — where outside solutions rarely stick and community-rooted approaches do
Our Community Violence Prevention Programs
WHAT WE DO
2-Generation
Healthy Living: Put Down the Guns
A two-generation program that brings youth who have been adjudicated or are fascinated with guns together with their parents or trusted adults for candid, structured conversations about choices, safety, and accountability.
Guest speakers — including mothers who have lost children to gun violence, former gang members, law enforcement, and hospital staff — share first-hand experience without lecturing or finger-pointing. The goal is to help young people explore the full impact of gun violence and make their own informed decisions.
Café Series
Gun Safety Parent Cafés
A three-session Café series for adults centered on safety and nonviolent parenting. Like all Parent Cafés, the group culture is created with intentionality — a nonjudgmental, nurturing space to reflect, grieve, and create strategies for protecting loved ones.
Week one:Keeping Your Child Safe.Week two:Knowing Your Home Is Safe.Week three:Raising Safe Children. Parents grieve and celebrate together, gain strength from one another, and leave with actionable steps and a newfound sense of solidarity.
Read the full story: South Carolina Gun Safety Cafés →
Our Work Also Includes:
Youth-led conversations that shift peer norms and influence
Training for professionals to engage without escalating
Pilot programs and community partnership design
Expansion support for existing prevention efforts
FROM THE FIELD: Darlington County, SC
A mother joined a Gun Safety Café cohort just one year after losing her child to gun violence. She was grieving and angry. The Cafés gave her an outlet to share her experience and process her pain. By the second cohort, she had trained as a Café table host — and made the decorations for the group herself. From what she received as a participant, she was moved to create that same safe, nurturing space for others.
With two generations in the room having real conversations, you see measurable change.
WHAT THIS LOOKS LIKE IN REAL LIFE
What we see:
Silence and posturing become honesty and accountability
Participants challenge and support each other differently
Adults report more open conversations at home
What participants report:
Increased emotional awareness and the ability to identify and name what they're feeling
Stronger communication skills and a greater ability to pause and respond instead of react
Attitudinal shifts toward nonviolence and changes in behavior related to gun storage and family communication
Why Be Strong Families for this work?
Our work in community violence prevention is grounded in the same belief that drives everything we do: when people feel safe enough to be real, they can change. When they feel supported instead of judged, they make better choices. When they're connected — to each other and to something larger than themselves — violence loses its grip.
We create space where people can be real without being judged — and still be held accountable for how they show up.
Grounded in evidence
Our work is grounded in Protective Factors and the YouthThrive framework — research-based models that have demonstrated impact with families and youth across the country.
Community-rooted, not imposed
We build alongside communities with respect and consistency. Our facilitators bring lived experience, not just credentials.
Two-generation by design
Youth and parents participate together — because lasting change in families and communities requires both generations in the room.
THE ROLE OF PARENTS AND CAREGIVERS
A critical one.
When parents and caregivers are supported, connected, and equipped, they show up differently — and that changes what's possible for young people. Community violence prevention can't happen without them. Our programming treats parents and caregivers not as problems to be managed, but as the protective force they already are — when given the right conditions.