Fiscal Year 2023 Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grantee Abstracts

Boise State University  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness; Type 4: Youth Resilience Programs  

$265,000.00  

Boise State University will develop a suite of digital products supporting and supplementing human rights education for the secondary grade level (grades 8-12 or ages 13-18) and adult learners. The focus will be on serving underserved, rural communities in the state by designing digital products that use innovative and dynamic approaches to secondary education. These approaches will be aimed at increasing individual resilience to recruitment narratives for hate- and violence-based ideologies, strengthening human rights educational outcomes, and improving individuals’ abilities to understand violent content. Products will be designed with the support and involvement of teachers who will use these classroom resources. 

Cherokee Nation  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness; Type 2: Understanding Violent Content  

$290,000.00   

Cherokee Nation will educate and train students, parents, teachers, and community members about violence prevention methods and skills. Cherokee Nation will raise awareness and develop skills to improve school climate and culture. This initiative will provide training for key education stakeholders. Skill development and prevention training facilitated through a School Climate Summit will be held within the Cherokee Nation Reservation. 

Colorado Information Analysis Center, Colorado Department of Public Safety  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness; Type 3: Civic Engagement; Type 5: Threat Assessment and Management Teams: Type 6: Bystander Training  

$775,720.00  

The Colorado Information Analysis Center’s Colorado Preventing Targeted Violence (CO-PTV) Program will support violence prevention through multiple avenues. The program will include increasing bystander reporting, supporting new regional targeted violence prevention efforts, and identifying regional champions. The champions will develop behavioral threat assessment and management teams to support and mentor local teams. The program will also connect regional prevention partners to the broader statewide CO-PTV prevention network for greater collaboration and resource sharing. 

Connecticut Center for School Safety and Crisis Preparation/ Western Connecticut State University   

Type 5: Threat Assessment and Management Team  

$362,655.00  

The Connecticut Center for School Safety and Crisis Preparation and Western Connecticut State University will expand and enhance capacity for schools in Connecticut to manage school-related threats. They will develop threat assessment teams to support districts in their violence prevention and intervention efforts using the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines model. The Connecticut Center for School Safety and Crisis Preparation will train staff to consult with schools. Additionally, the Center will partner with Safer Schools Together to address digital threats for schools by developing a template and strategy to help districts address threats. They will help districts build capacity to investigate digital threats on social media platforms and help students and parents identify the risks of cyber threats. 

Education Services District 123 (Washington)  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness; Type 2: Understanding Violent Content; Type 3: Civic Engagement; Type 4: Youth Resilience Programs  

$1,185,153.00   

Educational Service District 123, based in Pasco, Washington, will develop two projects providing collaborative solutions that promote learning. The first project will focus on preventing escalation to violence among college students by expanding, supporting, and collaborating with threat assessment and management teams. The second project will focus on preventing escalation to violence among 12-18-year-olds. This project will develop care coordination involving outreach services and case management, youth access to services, parenting and family education, youth resilience programming, and community outreach at school and community events. 

Hampton University  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness  

$150,000.00  

Hampton University will develop an evidence-based targeted violence and terrorism prevention (TVTP) plan to raise the Hampton University community’s awareness of the threats posed by various forms of violence. This will include racially motivated violent extremism, terrorism, and gun violence in digital and physical spaces. The project has potential for replication at other Historically Black Colleges and Universities that lack TVTP plans. 

Health Quality Partners of Southern California  

Type 5: Threat Assessment and Management Teams  

$231,859.00  

Health Quality Partners of Southern California, also known as Community Clinics Health Network, will increase reporting of concerning behaviors by developing workplace violence prevention and intervention programs and implementing threat management teams across the membership of Health Center Partners of Southern California (HCP). HCP is an organization of primary care health providers that includes Federally Qualified Health Centers and Tribal Health Programs. 

John Jay College  

Type 6: Bystander Training  

$126,764.00   

Subject matter experts at John Jay College, New York Presbyterian, and the Center on American Law and Extremism will partner to develop a train-the-trainer pilot project on bystander interventions to prevent targeted violence. The training will focus on recognizing behavioral indicators of mobilization to violence and familiarizing audiences with locally available referral mechanisms. They also will develop and launch a website to serve as a repository of information and a resource for bystander training on targeted violence prevention. 

Michigan State Police Michigan Intelligence Operations Center  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness  

$425,845.00  

The Michigan State Police (MSP) Michigan Intelligence Operations Center (MIOC) will deliver in-person community awareness training to 240 law enforcement officers and 5,000 Michigan residents state-wide. They also will create a website and social media campaign and participate in community events to raise awareness of targeted acts of violence in Michigan. They also will raise awareness of how the community can identify and properly refer individuals who may demonstrate behaviors that suggest they may be going down a path toward violence. 

Minnesota Department of Public Safety Minnesota Bureau of Criminal  Apprehension  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness; Type 5: Threat Assessment and Management; Type 6: Bystander Training; Type 7: Referral Services  

$700,659.00   

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) will prevent specified and unspecified targeted violence in the State of Minnesota by establishing a statewide BCA-Threat Assessment and Management Team (BCA-TAMT), developing regional teams, and implementing training and continuing education for law enforcement and appropriate partners, such as officials working within schools, faith-based institutions, and mental health organizations. Subjects of interest to the BCA-TAMT include persons of concern, potential active shooters, school shootings/threats, stalking, and workplace violence. The organization also will deliver in-person and web-based training, as well as continuing education, to assist in the development of TAMTs within Minnesota and enhance situational awareness and knowledge bases related to the prevention of targeted violence.

Minneapolis Health Department  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness; Type 3: Civic Engagement; Type 6: Bystander Training  

$287,147.00  

The Minneapolis Health Department’s Community Partnership to Identify and Prevent Violence Extremism in Minneapolis program will use a community-focused approach to prevent violence. The goal is to decrease risk factors for radicalization and violent extremism to keep communities safe. The project will prevent future acts of violent extremism by working with the community to make a violent extremism awareness campaign. The campaign will build trust within the community and develop local partners’ understanding of the issues by using intentional civic engagement to identify needs and concerns about specific threats. The project will engage the community as partners in prevention by jointly hosting community-specific bystander/upstander training. 

Mississippi Office of Homeland Security   

Type 3: Civic Engagement; Type 5: Threat Assessment and Management Teams  

$658,746.00   

The Mississippi Office of Homeland Security (MOHS) will expand two established programs to include a targeted violence and terrorism prevention focus. MOHS will expand its training program to deliver TVTP training to law enforcement, communities, churches, businesses, students, and interested citizens. The training will enhance awareness, strengthen partnerships, and share information to prevent acts of violence and terrorism across Mississippi. A division of MOHA, the Mississippi Analysis and Information Center (MSAIC) will establish threat assessment teams to identify, assess, implement, and manage intervention strategies across Mississippi. The teams will develop a threat assessment framework to identify best practices that are implementable in future programs across Mississippi. 

New York Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness; Type 5: Threat Assessment and Management  

$296,566.00  

New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services (DHSES) will support the advancement of Threat Assessment and Management (TAM) teams across the state. This initiative will build on work done under FY 2020 and FY 2022 awards, building out targeted violence and domestic terrorism prevention frameworks statewide through the utilization of TAM and the formalization of domestic terrorism prevention efforts and plans within communities across the state. This work is in support of the New York State Targeted Violence Prevention Strategy. DHSES will develop and deliver training programs that fill current capability gaps. Additionally, DHSES will aid existing TAM teams in evaluating their domestic terrorism prevention plans to inform future initiatives and resources. 

One World Strong  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness; Type 2: Understanding Violent Content; Type 4: Youth Resilience Programs; Type 5: Threat Assessment and Management Teams; Type 6: Bystander Training; Type 7: Referral Services; Type 8: Recidivism Reduction & Reintegration  

$1,140,067.00  

Boston Tea Leaves will use School Resource Teams, Community Threat Assessment Teams, and City Engagement Forums to support students, teachers, and guidance counselors across Boston Public Schools. They will mitigate a rise in violent extremist challenges in school settings, particularly misogynistic, racially, and ethnically motivated violent extremism. The project will use a public health model to improve safety and provide individualized support for at-risk students. The Boston Tea Leaves program will provide localized information across Boston, better informing city, state, and federal prevention efforts. 

Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness, Type 2: Understanding Violent Content; Type 5: Threat Assessment and Management Teams; Type 6: Bystander Training; Type 7: Referral Services; Type 8: Recidivism Reduction & Reintegration  

$600,000.00  

The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office (PBSO) will enhance the Palm Beach County School and Community Violence Prevention Project in partnership with Southeast Florida Behavioral Health Network (SEFBHN) and the 211 HELPLINE, which provides free and confidential crisis and emergency assistance. The project will increase Palm Beach County’s current capacity and evidence-based response strategies. It will expand Palm Beach County’s threat assessment strategy to incorporate bystander training, referral services, and access to programs reducing instances of repeated acts of targeted violence. PBSO also will build a public awareness and community education campaign to enhance Palm Beach County’s capacity to prevent violence. 

Parents for Peace  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness; Type 5: Threat Assessment and Management Teams; Type 7: Referral Services  

$832,000.00  

Parents for Peace (P4P) will build awareness about violent extremism, behavioral signs of radicalization, and the P4P helpline. The helpline is a free, confidential helpline for bystanders and individuals needing help. P4P will add a text-based component, increase advertising, and extend helpline hours so more people can get help. P4P also will standardize and add to its intervention services.

Search for Common Ground  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness; Type 3: Civic Engagement; Type 6: Bystander Training  

$505,097.00  

The Rural Peacemakers Project (RPP), which is a partnership between Search for Common Ground and Multi-Faith Neighbors Network, will build resilience to targeted violence and terrorism (TVT) in rural communities in North and Central Texas. By raising awareness among community and faith leaders and facilitating collaborative efforts, RPP will address gaps in existing programs tailored to rural needs. RPP will include conducting community dialogues, training faith leaders to act as key bystanders, fostering both community and individual resilience to TVT, and launching community-led initiatives. 

SMYAL  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness; Type 4: Youth Resilience Programs  

$530,000.00  

SMYAL will address the risk of violence and negative mental health outcomes faced by LGBTQ+ youth in D.C. and Montgomery County, MD. SMYAL's program will employ a community-level and behavioral health approach. The project will provide in-school support for LGBTQ+ youth, training for school staff and youth service providers, resilience programming for LGBTQ+ youth ages 6-24, and support for parents and caregivers. 

University of Buffalo, Alberti Center for Bullying Abuse Prevention  

Type 4: Youth Resilience Programs; Type 6: Bystander Training  

$233,955.00  

The University of Buffalo, Alberti Center of Bullying Abuse Prevention will build youth resiliency by implementing NAB IT! (Norms and Bystander Intervention Training) with 200 youth. NAB IT! will help youth identify and respond to bullying, cyberbullying, and sexual harassment. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Bystander Intervention Training, CARE (Communities Acting to Refer and Engage), will be provided to students and school staff to enhance their ability to recognize behaviors that might indicate an individual is escalating to violence and identify appropriate steps to get help. A training component will be included for trainers so NAB IT! can be further shared with small- to mid-sized communities and underserved populations. 

University of California, Irvine  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness; Type 2: Understanding Violent Content; Type 3: Civic Engagement; Type 4: Youth Resilience Programs; Type 6: Bystander Training  

$684,006.00   

University of California, Irvine will provide tools and training to K-12 and college students. These tools and training will help students participate in diverse coalitions that reach national audiences using multimedia approaches focused on developing youth resilience to targeted violence and terrorism. Activities will include raising awareness, increasing understanding of violent content, strengthening diverse civic engagement, developing youth resilience to extremism and violence, and empowering communities through bystander training. 

University of Colorado Denver  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness, Type 5: Threat Assessment and Management Teams; Type 6: Bystander Training  

$606,624.00  

The University of Colorado Denver Campus Assessment Response and Evaluation (CARE) Team, a multidisciplinary behavioral intervention and threat assessment team, will partner with on-campus constituents and off-campus experts in threat assessment. They will increase the University of Colorado Denver community’s awareness of targeted violence and terrorism and mechanisms for reporting. They also will enhance engagement in targeted violence and terrorism prevention efforts through bystander intervention trainings. They also will improve CARE Team knowledge and expand community partnerships to serve the needs of underserved students on campus. 

University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Medicine  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness; Type 2: Understanding Violent Content; Type 4: Youth Resilience Programs; Type 6: Bystander Training; Type 7: Referral Services  

$981,916.00   

The University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Medicine will partner with clinicians, researchers, and staff from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), DePaul University, Loyola University, and the Illinois Homeland Security Advisory Council to reduce the risk of future violence. This will focus on training and capacity building around diversity, equity, and inclusion practices. These activities will focus on targeted violence and terrorism prevention for community members, frontline practitioners, mental health specialists, and Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management (BTAM) teams. They also will build regional threat assessment and management capacities and refine the tools, guides, and trainings. They also will establish a statewide Illinois Community Safety Committee to assist local prevention and BTAM Team efforts and provide tools, guidance, and training.

University of Texas, El Paso  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness; Type 2: Understanding Violent Content; Type 3: Civic Engagement; Type 4: Youth Resilience Programs  

$296,806.00   

The University of Texas at El Paso will leverage and expand REACH (Resilience, Education, Action, Commitment, Humanity) through a national project and social media campaign. The project will focus on countering the rise of online radicalization to violence. The project will take place in El Paso County, San Antonio, Hidalgo County, TX, Miami Gardens, FL, Camarillo, CA, and Worcester, MA. The project and social media campaign will include multiple cultures and multiple languages. It also will include topics about Understanding Violent Content, Civil Learning, and Arts-Based Approaches to countering online radicalization to violence.

The University of Vermont  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness; Type 3: Civic Engagement; Type 5: Threat Assessment and Management Teams; Type 6: Bystander Training  

$943,976.00   

The University of Vermont (UVM) will improve violence prevention efforts in Vermont colleges and medium-to-large employers by implementing behavioral threat assessment and management (BTAM) best practices. UVM will provide BTAM training to campus threat assessment and management teams and build social awareness of TVTP among students, faculty, and staff. They will cultivate sustainable partnerships among institutional leaders, law enforcement, community organizations, and emergency management personnel. These objectives will be achieved through campus BTAM capacity building, community awareness through digital asset creation and distribution, and developing sustainable partnerships through a Healthy Communities Symposium. 

Urban Rural Action  

Type 1: Raising Societal Awareness; Type 2: Understanding Violent Content; Type 3: Civic Engagement; Type 5: Threat Assessment and Management; Type 7: Referral Services  

$799,201.00  

Urban Rural Action’s Uniting to Prevent Targeted Violence (UPTV) program in Southeast Wisconsin will build a sustainable targeted violence prevention network. This will be done by strengthening social cohesion across communities, increasing community members’ access to prevention services, and increasing community capacity to assess and manage threats. UPTV will form a diverse cohort to build relationships across communities, collaborate with community partners on prevention projects, help form threat assessment and management teams, and raise community awareness of the local prevention network. 

Xavier University  

Type 5: Threat Assessment and Management Teams  

$54,000.00  

Ohio K-12 school districts are responsible for providing all children with a safe learning environment. School personnel are required to receive threat assessment training from a provider approved by the Ohio Director of Public Safety. The state of Ohio has 20 approved trainers that are available to train more than 2,000 middle and high schools. This ratio is not sufficient to meet the needs of all Ohio K-12 schools. Xavier University’s project will provide initial and follow-up threat assessment training to all secondary schools in Southwest Ohio and conduct two monthly threat assessment trainings for nine months covering eight southwest Ohio counties, each project year. 

American University Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab  

$784,276.00  

American University’s Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL)’s Developing and Using Critical Comprehension (DUCC) program will build resilience against violent content online, focusing on K-5 education. The DUCC project will create multimedia educational materials focused on teaching children in grades K-5 how to recognize harmful online content. The materials will comprise lesson plans, exercises, reflections, videos, and video games. All the materials will be reviewed and evaluated to measure impact. The project will end with the distribution and promotion of the DUCC materials, to support educational institutions.

Boston Children’s Hospital  

$820,990.00   

Boston Children’s Hospital will establish and support local violence prevention efforts, offering training for mental health practitioners in assessing and managing risk for targeted violence and terrorism. They will use the TVT: Strengths, Needs, and Risks Assessment & Management tool (T-SAM), which is a clinical tool for managing risk for violence escalation. The project will provide mental health program support to prevent targeted violence. Boston Children’s Hospital will advance the T-SAM nationwide and develop tools to aid mental health providers in violence prevention.

Columbia University  

$820,332.00  

Columbia University will design an interactive program focused on storytelling for educators and educational staff to learn about strategies to engage in story creation. The project will involve researching, developing, and presenting stories. The project will focus on educational displacement in physical, virtual, and social spaces of learning within and beyond schools. It also will include curating and co-creating educator stories of adapting to challenging situations, supporting the storytelling of educators who bring unifying narratives from their local communities, and leading the sharing of these stories at Teachers College, Columbia University.  The program will study and integrate protective storytelling by activating educator voices to amplify protective factors against targeted violence.  

Institute for Strategic Dialogue  

$817,129.52  

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, through the Strong Cities Network, which it has managed since its launch in 2015, will work with several partners to fill gaps in existing targeted violence prevention support to smaller cities. Partners include:

• Albuquerque, N.M.
• Athens, Ohio
• Bend, Ore.
• Chattanooga, Tenn.
• Overland Park, Kan.
• Stamford, Conn.

The project will form local multidisciplinary leadership groups in each city, chaired by the local government. These groups will be trained to understand the targeted violence and navigate existing TVTP resources. The lessons from this effort will be shared with cities across the U.S. This will help other cities to replicate this model.

McCain Institute  

$770,610.00  

The McCain Institute at Arizona State University, in collaboration with The Reilly Group, Moonshot, and Community Matters, will implement the Youth Upstander Initiative for Targeted Violence Education (UNITE) program. This initiative will promote targeted violence and terrorism prevention resources to increase youth awareness and skills, including toolkits for local campaigns. The program will train middle school-, high school-, and college-aged students. The program will expand the McCain Institute’s Prevention Practitioners Network to involve youth-led organizations in national efforts and enhance school staff awareness of multidisciplinary threat assessment resources. 

Peoria Regional Office of Education #48  

$691,610.00   

The Peoria Regional Office of Education will advance the Illinois Targeted Violence Prevention Strategy for K-12 students. The strategy was developed through the state’s participation in the National Governor’s Association Policy Academy on Preventing Targeted Violence. The Peoria Regional Office of Education will appoint safety directors at the school community level. These directors will provide resources and coordinate activities focused on violence prevention. This will promote information sharing and centralize resources. The project will demonstrate the importance and feasibility of having K-12 regional safety directors across the state. It will deliver best practices and cost estimates that will be shared with the governor and the Illinois Regional School Superintendents Association to request further funding for safety directors in all K-12 regions in Illinois. 

The University of Colorado Boulder  

$868,875.00  

The University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence (CSPV) will partner with the Colorado Information Analysis Center and Colorado Attorney General’s Office to implement innovative tools for threat assessment and management aimed at preventing targeted violence. The two new and untested tools for the assessment and management of those at risk for targeted violence: (a) a protocol for law enforcement professionals to identify and refer persons at risk for targeted violence and (b) a statewide database to track and manage targeted violence cases (e.g., threat assessment). The project’s goals are to deliver training on the newly developed Targeted Violence Lethality Assessment Protocol, conduct a quality improvement evaluation of the TV-LAP’s implementation and impact, and design and implement a secure statewide Targeted Violence Case Management Database. Training on TV-LAP will enhance law enforcement officers’ ability to identify and refer threatening individuals for services. The statewide database will be used to standardize threat assessment and management and promote information sharing. Training for community teams will be included. CSPV will also conduct a quality improvement evaluation of the database’s implementation and impact.

University of North Dakota  

$386,682.78  

The University of North Dakota will create a new cultural module within the "Be Students Empowering and Encouraging Native Nations" (Be SEENN) project. Initiated in Spring 2022, Be SEENN provides education about Indigenous cultures. The free online module will raise awareness of targeted violence and gather information on participants' perceptions and intended actions regarding race. One of the goals is that the educational module expands understanding of Indigenous culture and promote conversations about peace and nonviolence.