Worcester Youth Violence Prevention Initiative

Community Engagement Strategy • Workshop Facilitation • Strategy Development

The Worcester Youth Violence Prevention Initiative (WYVPI) is the City of Worcester’s response to youth violence that is rooted in toxic stress and was formed following a gang and youth violence assessment and citywide strategic planning process that engaged youth, adult residents, and other stakeholders.

Action! by Design was engaged to help strategize with WYVPI’s stakeholders on the future of the initiative with a priority of elevating community engagement as a priority in this work following some community concern around this effort. Our work started with establishing a long term goal and developing the right question to ask the community (our Design Challenge).

Following multiple sessions with the WYVPI team in Jan-Feb 2021, we identified three core areas that would benefit from being explored with the community over time. 1) Alignment: Shifting Stakeholder Perspectives and Behaviors; 2) Positioning: Communication & Clarity in the Community; and 3) Engaging Youth & Community in the WYVPI Effort.

Focusing on Alignment, we facilitated a series of workshops with different stakeholders to inform the next WYVPI Assessment and future work and delivered a report to WYVPI with our observations, findings, and recommendations.