Basketball builds better mental health for youth in Federal Way

Richmond, California's Office of Neighborhood Safety responded to alarmingly high gun violence levels with an outreach approach to young men at high risk of getting shot or of shooting others. Instead of a heavy-handed enforcement strategy, the office intervenes in likely retaliatory violence and enrolls men as fellows in a year-long program offering counseling, education, job training, and a $500 monthly stipend for fellows on the right track. In the programs first three years, gun homicides dropped and 65 of 68 fellows survived.

The Youths United for God Global Foundation trains youth in various skills and trades, such as cutting hair, farming and working with computers, to help them become better equipped to secure jobs and income. Training sessions run every three months, and so far over 1,000 youths have been directly impacted by the program, many of which have gone on to forge careers and gain a sense of financial security with their newly-learned skills.

The four-year ROCA program reaches out to young men in Baltimore at risk of becoming involved in gun violence. Youth workers check in on participants a few times a week and give them opportunities to learn the skills necessary to find a job. The program's lessons are based on cognitive behavioral therapy and remind participants to pause and think before they act.

In the first year of Baltimore's use of an anti-violence program for young men that has proven successful in Boston, the program successfully reached about half its targeted contacts, and from that group enrolled about 95, or just over 1%, in job training and education programs. Though extremely modest, the numbers indicate the challenges faced by a population in which several died, many got incarcerated, and many others resisted contact. The program, Roca, uses behavioral therapy to turn job training into life training. In Boston, large numbers get jobs and stay out of trouble long term.

Prospects in Camden, NJ, one of the most impoverished and murder-ridden cities in the U.S., are finally looking up, particularly for its younger residents. This is in part thanks to Hopeworks, a nonprofit that provides Camden’s youth with employable skills while addressing childhood trauma and socioeconomic stresses. Having served 3,500+ people in their 17 years of operation, Hopeworks is now expanding its success story to Philadelphia, where they will implement a pilot program later this year.

Sweden has, and continues, to receive a lot of asylum seekers, leading to the need for successful integration of these new immigrants. Certain programs have been developed, such as one that when completed asylum seekers will be able to gain employment faster, or others that help young immigrants understand their new culture.

Some local programs see youth employment as more than just a workforce development issue. They also view jobs as a way to offer stability to young people, especially those from Cleveland area communities with high violence rates. The research bears them out. These are the voices of some of the voices speaking in favor of more jobs and less violence.

Healing Hurt People, a hospital-based violence intervention program in Portland, embeds caseworkers in trauma center care teams to rapidly connect shooting victims and their families with counseling, housing assistance, job training, and emotional support. The program has been linked with Portland's decline in gun violence, though chronic funding instability continues to threaten its capacity and growth.

Lansing, Michigan built an ecosystem of community violence intervention programs (anchored by Advance Peace and the Lansing Empowerment Network) that reduced shootings by 38% between 2022 and 2025. Their relationship-based outreach, mentorship, and victim support continue to prove effective despite federal funding cuts.

Local organizations such as Mujeres Rurales Argentinas and the provincial Ministry of Agriculture's Gender Cabinet are empowering rural women through artisanal tea production. By offering training programs structured around women's caregiving schedules, creating spaces for gender-inclusive collaboration, and advocating for policy changes, these groups have helped increase women's leadership roles in tea production, as more than half of artisan producers are now women.