Chicago Bears, Blackhawks, Bulls, Cubs and White Sox Move Forward with Support for Violence Reduction Programs in 2019
This press release has been reposted from the University of Chicago Urban Labs. View the full press release here.
The Chicago Sports Alliance, the collaboration of five of Chicago’s professional sports teams, announced it will move forward in 2019 to lend the teams’ collective reach and resources in support of finding innovative solutions to decrease violence in the city. This is the second consecutive year of the Alliance and its contributions.
With this announcement, the Chicago Bears, Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago Bulls, Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox, operating together as the Chicago Sports Alliance, confirmed the group will donate a total of $1 million in grants to continue supporting a partnership with the University of Chicago Crime Lab and Choose to Change (C2C), which combines Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), Inc’s high-intensity mentoring and advocacy with trauma-informed therapy provided by Children’s Home & Aid. New this year, the Alliance will fund the targeted transitional job training program, READI Chicago (Rapid Employment and Development Initiative).
Last year, the Alliance provided a grant earmarked for analyst training at the Chicago Police Department’s Strategic Decisions Support Centers (SDSCs). In 2018, additional support fully funded the training program and SDSCs. The support created the opportunity for the Alliance to direct investments toward a new program, READI Chicago.
The Alliance maintained the approach established in its first year by relying on data and expertise from the Crime Lab to direct the group’s investments toward programs and efforts structured to produce more actionable insights.
The Crime Lab, which partners with policymakers and practitioners to help cities design and test ways to reduce crime and improve lives at scale, provides data-driven recommendations to the Alliance about promising ways to reduce violence. The ongoing support from the teams will further the Crime Lab’s mission of working closely with nonprofits and city government to identify and help scale the most effective ways to reduce violence and support thriving communities in Chicago.
With support from the Alliance for a second year, C2C will expand its mentoring and trauma therapy program to more participants who are most at-risk for violence involvement in the Englewood community. Support from the Alliance in 2018 allowed C2C to add a fifth group of participants, reaching 60 additional at-risk youth. Preliminary results from the Crime Lab’s randomized controlled trial evaluation indicate that participation in C2C reduced violent arrests by about 50 percent.
Through the Alliance grant, READI Chicago will add more young men at highest risk of becoming involved in gun violence to participate in the 18-month program providing transitional job training and trauma-informed cognitive behavioral therapy. READI Chicago is grounded in research that suggests the promise of employment opportunities coupled with therapy and training to help participants slow down their decision-making in high-stakes situations. READI Chicago is the first program of its scope and scale ever to be implemented.
Each team also will continue to work with the grant recipients throughout the year by providing in-kind support, as well as tapping into the teams’ vast networks of fans and organizational strengths to help bring awareness to the programs.
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