Project Safe Neighborhoods: Community Engagement and Media Outreach Technical Assistance Program: BJA Competitive Grant Announcement, FY 2004

Project Safe Neighborhoods: Community Engagement and Media Outreach Technical Assistance Program, FY 2004

About Project Safe Neighborhoods

Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) is a nationwide network designed to create safer neighborhoods by reducing gun violence and gun crime and sustaining that reduction. The program's effectiveness is based on the cooperation of local, state, and federal agencies in a unified offensive led by the U.S. Attorney (USA) in each of the 94 federal judicial districts. Each USA is responsible for establishing a collaborative PSN task force of federal, state, and local law enforcement and other community members to implement PSN initiatives within the USA's district. Through the PSN task force, each USA will implement the five core elements of PSN—partnerships, strategic planning, training, outreach, and accountability—in a manner that addresses the specific gun-crime problems in that district. Details on the five elements can be found on the PSN web site. BJA's PSN funding is divided into several grant programs: Media Outreach and Community Engagement, Research Partner/Crime Analyst, Reducing Community Gun Violence Program, Project Sentry, Project ChildSafe, and individual district awards.

Under the Fiscal Year (FY) 2002 Community Engagement and Media Outreach Program, BJA awarded grants to one recipient in each federal judicial district. The goals of this program are (1) to aggressively promote the message that all firearm-related violent crime will be met with strict enforcement and swift and certain punishment, (2) to encourage citizens to work with local, state, and federal law enforcement to address firearm-related violent crime within their jurisdictions, and (3) to promote gun safety at the local level.

Community engagement activities under these grants include working with citizens to develop a gun violence reduction strategy for the district, including appropriate crime prevention strategies that involve community members. The community can be a critical resource for offering positive alternatives to offenders who take the violence reduction message seriously, but need help turning their lives around.

Media outreach activities include producing and distributing literature, conducting mail campaigns, sponsoring local workshops, and creating related advertising messages. Advertising messages include public service announcements (PSAs), educational literature, crime prevention toolkits, billboard advertisements, press releases, and news articles. These media partners will work with the local PSN task forces to identify local stakeholders, leverage the support of potential partners, identify resources, and engage members of the community in the PSN initiative.

In September 2003, the release of a PSA called "Mothers" to approximately 1,900 media outlets launched a national media campaign. The PSA sought to engage potential criminal offenders, families, and communities by portraying the consequences of gun crime for illegal gun users and crime's effects on users' families. Prior to the release of the national campaign, each media partner received copies of several PSAs developed by local PSN programs that it could use as examples for its own specific initiative. Some examples are on the PSN web site.

About the PSN Community Engagement and Media Outreach Technical Assistance Program

Through the FY 2004 PSN Community Engagement and Media Outreach Technical Assistance Program, BJA will fund specialized support to the 94 PSN task forces. Technical assistance (TA) will be provided through a combination of onsite and office-based TA and training, and the development and the dissemination of resource materials. Funding under this competitive grant announcement includes money allocated to the program in FY 2003.

The goal of the Community Engagement TA Program is to work with PSN task forces to define and implement a comprehensive community engagement strategy, of which the media campaign is one component. Community engagement is the thread that runs through all five elements of PSN program implementation—from the strategic planning stage of program development, when the specific law enforcement focus of the program is determined and essential partnerships are identified, through partnership creation, training plan development, community outreach and media activities, and the accountability tasks of program evaluation and reporting. Community involvement, understanding, and support are essential to the success of the PSN program.

Some PSN teams are still developing their district's gun violence reduction strategy. In a number of instances, the PSN initiative is building on or coordinating previously developed antiviolence programs, and a number of districts are considering the appropriateness of focusing on firearms cases that involve domestic violence and juvenile gangs. Therefore, the community engagement TA provider will need to spend a significant amount of time supporting the development and implementation of community engagement strategies that will shape each of the initiatives undertaken by the PSN task force partners. The TA provider also will need to build bridges with other OJP community-based programs, such as community policing and prosecution, Weed and Seed, and Safe and Drug Free Communities, to help PSN task forces leverage existing resources.

A central concern of the community engagement process is the definition of community. This definition varies from district to district, and one important aspect of the TA provider's work is to assist in developing it. Identifying the audience helps identify the messages a PSN task force wants to send, as well as the best mechanisms for reaching a particular group. Communicating with the citizens in a target area is not the same as communicating with the general public. Community outreach is usually more intensive and requires more participation from the intended recipients of the message.

BJA envisions that the community engagement TA provider will improve district community outreach efforts in three areas: general communication to broaden the concept of outreach and ensure awareness of PSN; local communication to engage the community in developing the PSN strategy, initiating and maintaining a dialogue with the PSN task force, and crafting culturally appropriate goals and messages for PSN in the district; and communication designed to promote the participation of law-abiding citizens and foster deterrence among potential criminals, as well as coordinated and direct support for developing community capacity to provide offenders with positive support.

The TA provider will work with the district teams to seek information that supports enforcement strategies, reduces negative factors that make the community attractive to crime, and builds positive alternatives and resources for people who no longer want to engage in violence. Finally, the provider selected will work with BJA, the Department of Justice's (DOJ's) Firearms Enforcement Assistance Team (FEAT), Michigan State University, and other PSN TA providers to build the capacity of district teams to appropriately share data with the public.

The goal of the Media Outreach TA Program is to assist PSN task forces with the development of a media strategy that complements other elements of the districts' gun violence reduction initiative. The program emphasizes the media campaign as a means, not an end, for community outreach efforts. Once a PSN task force defines its community, the proper messages need to be molded and the ideal delivery vehicles identified. The various audiences could include potential perpetrators of gun violence, family members who might influence the perpetrator, law enforcement officials involved in an aspect of PSN, or government officials and members of the public who provide support for local PSN programming. Variation among audiences selected by PSN task forces is to be expected, based on the composition of the PSN task force, local violent crime issues, and resources available in the community. The development of these messages also needs to be coordinated with the community outreach strategies.

The media outreach TA provider should be able to advise PSN task forces and media partners on securing media interest in local PSN activities through effective packaging of stories and regular communication; leveraging air time for PSAs and getting ad firms to donate their time to the effort; determining what message best reaches the community and which venues best communicate the message (TV, buses, billboards, and so forth); presenting the PSN task force as a true partnership and crediting all participants for their efforts; handling negative media coverage; leveraging creative media such as web site creation and maintenance groups, op-ed outlets, local cable shows, and talk radio; and understanding DOJ expectations regarding accurate and nonoffensive targeted messages.

The objectives of the PSN Community Engagement and Media Outreach TA Program are to:

Identify, document, and educate practitioners about promising and proven practices.
Provide technical assistance onsite or via telephone or e-mail.
Coordinate peer-to-peer consultation.
Manage long-distance meetings (e.g., teleconferencing and focus groups).
Develop and conduct training, including curriculum development (for the community engagement program only).
Develop publications, fact sheets, resource guides, multimedia products, and other materials (content and production).
Schedule, conduct, and facilitate conferences, workshops, seminars, trainings, focus groups, and meetings.
Provide logistical and travel support for planning meetings and local onsite technical assistance.
Provide general program documentation.

BJA seeks grantees with the capacity to plan for, manage, and meet deliverables under this program. This capacity should include:

A technical assistance triage process that describes how service requests will be received, assessed, and addressed.
A plan to build and offer more substantive services (e.g., documentation of practices, written materials, training materials, and reports of analyses conducted).
A plan for managing all support-related activities (including logistical support for meetings and onsite technical assistance).
A plan that uses proven evaluation methods to evaluate the service delivery process and to implement changes based on the evaluation (including a plan to evaluate each instance of technical assistance).
An overall management plan for handling the duties associated with this award (i.e., documentation of efforts and expenditures).

BJA and FEAT staff will work closely with grantees to develop an approval process for local technical assistance requests.