Advancing Minnesota's Next Step Hospital-Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Program

Hennepin Healthcare’s Next Step program is Minnesota’s only hospital-based violence intervention program (HBVIP). As gun and community violence have risen dramatically throughout the state, the program has identified specific gaps to address in order to expand critical violence intervention services. Next Step proposes utilizing funding under the 2022 Advancing Hospital-Based Victim Services solicitation to deliver a comprehensive, collaborative, and community-driven program that reduces the incidence of gun and community violence and helps Minnesota’s communities recover from this trauma. Next Step will serve gun and community violence survivors in Minnesota, the majority of whom are Black males. Although this focus group represents nearly 70% of Next Step participants, the program is available to any survivors of gun and community violence who need HBVIP services. Next Step currently participates in the Minneapolis Community Violence Intervention Collaborative (CVIC) through its relationship with the City of Minneapolis’s Office of Violence Prevention. The program will leverage its relationship with the CVIC to disseminate lessons learned from this solicitation and inform community partners about Next Step services. Additionally, Next Step intends to collaborate with two culturally-specific organizations to provide survivors with trauma-informed mental health and anger management services.

The proposed project has the following three goals: 1) improve Next Step hospital-based violence intervention program infrastructure, staff skills and capacity to better serve survivors of gun and community violence; 2) fund partnerships to expand the network of gun and community violence survivor services available to Next Step participants; and 3) create a seamless network of support services for survivors of gun and community violence. Next Step will measure success based on progress towards the following short-term and long-term outcomes: improving program infrastructure, increasing survivors’ access to services, reducing survivor recidivism rates, improving staff knowledge and skills, and improving health and socioeconomic outcomes for survivors of gun and community violence.

As a demonstration site, Next Step will improve outcomes for survivors of crime through the following key activities during the project period: 1) expanding access to community-based victim services through partnerships; 2) refining data collection practices; 3) providing robust training to hospital staff and partners; 4) increasing efficiencies of cross-hospital collaboration; and 5) conducting robust program evaluation to improve the program. Addressing these gaps will allow Next Step to continue to expand its critical services to communities in the Twin Cities Metro area, Hennepin County, and Minnesota that have been most severely impacted by gun and community violence.