Street Outreach Worker - Gun Violence Prevention

JOB SUMMARY:

The Peace Advocate has the primary responsibility to work with the street outreach team to foster a community that addresses potentially violence situations with nonviolent solutions by extensive networking and collaborating within the community and reaching out to identified and at-risk gang members and working directly with them to mediate potentially violent situations.  He/she will model and teach nonviolence in the street while also seeking to link gang involved and at-risk youth to services and resources in the community; and will work to reduce attachment of project youth to gangs and gang activities, and assisting in community mobilization in the target area.  The Peace Advocate will be a member of and participate in all intervention Team meetings and violence prevention initiatives within the city.  He/she will reflect and display the values of Character Development which are caring, honesty, respect and responsibility.

JOB FUNCTIONS:

• Identify appropriate youth to participate in the project based on target characteristics
• Work extensively in the communicate to develop networks and collaborative efforts to both identify at-risk youth and offer services, especially with schools, police, grant providers, and other providers
• Organize the street outreach efforts with the overall efforts of the Gun Violence Prevention initiative in the city
• Mediate potential street violence and gang violence situations
• Recruit and retain project youth by providing access to job skills training, information, resources, pro-social role modeling, and encouragement
• Serve as an advocate for project youth in securing social services, education, and job-related opportunities; provide information about services; and assess needs.

• Assess the needs of family members as related to the target youths’ gang involvement, identify gang-affected siblings of target participants, and make referrals to appropriate services
• Provide information on available services for participants’ family members
• Provide appropriate referral and follow-up to ensure that target youth are aware and able to access services
• Plan and attend social and recreational activities for the target youth
• Maintain records of contacts with youth, enter data in real time and write reports on status of clients
• Identify community resources to assist in implementation of the project
• Work with victims of gang related crime within the community
• Attend all internal/external meetings and trainings as required by supervisor
• Other duties as assigned