Healing Through Action

Hope and Heal Fund invested resources to promote the use of Gun Violence Restraining Orders. While only one-third of Californians have even heard of Gun Violence Restraining Orders, research has shown 80% would at least be somewhat willing to ask a judge to issue an order if a family member threatened to hurt themself or others. Our approach is to broadly educate Californians about this potentially life-saving tool through materials that are respectful of the various lived experiences of California residents. Visit the Cal OES GVRO website.

Hope and Heal Fund invested in GIS mapping as an excellent vehicle that allows us to braid data from a variety of sources to guide us in developing sustainable strategies that address disparities and reduce firearm deaths and injuries. Visit the GIS website.

El Hope and Heal Fund ha invertido en iniciativa dedicada a iluminar y combatir los desafíos que enfrenta nuestra comunidad Latina en relación con la violencia armada, la violencia doméstica, y el tráfico de armas. Mira los videos.

Hope and Heal Fund invested in a dedicated initiative to illuminate and combat the challenges faced by our Latino community regarding firearm violence, domestic violence, and firearm trafficking. Watch the videos.

Advance Peace

Seed funding to support strategic planning, research, assessment, technical assistance, training, and monitoring and evaluation of Advance Peace’s community violence prevention efforts in Stockton, CA. The Stockton Police Department data from 2018 reported a 31% decline in non-fatal shootings and 40% decrease in gun homicide. See the Stockton Impact Report to learn more about the success of this program.

Berkeley Media Studies Group (Bmsg)

2017: BMSG assessed narratives on gun violence currently present in California news to identify opportunities to elevate prevention and community-lead action – releasing BMSG Issue 25: More than mass shootings: Gun violence narratives in California news, which details how the three most common forms of gun violence — domestic violence, suicide, and community violence – are framed in California print media.

2018: Building on the first grant BMSG will focus on identifying new and dynamic messages and narrative frames that support the work to reduce gun-related deaths and injuries in the state. In September 2019, Berkeley Media Studies Group (BMSG) held its first listening session for the narrative change project with gun violence prevention experts and thought leaders from across the state. It was an incredible conversation about the intersection of the various types of gun violence and the common drivers that create and propel such violence. In February 2020, BMSG convened a second listening session focused on suicide prevention, convening leading experts from around the country. 

2021: BMSG is now on Phase 3 of the project, which will collect input from impacted communities around the state on firearm suicide, community violence, and domestic violence knowing that credible messages from credible messengers is key to changing the narrative. Those messages collected will be poll-tested and delivered back to the communities and to media journalists who cover gun violence issues. In collaboration with BMSG and our funding partners, we hope to build the capacity of community-based organizations so they have the ability to lift up their local stories and solutions. 

Given discussions about violence took on new importance as the global COVID-19 pandemic spurred historic increases in gun sales and protests against police brutality and structural racism put police violence and officer-involved shootings in the spotlight, BMSG conducted a subset analysis which was released in October 2021. Understanding violence and prevention during a pandemic: California news about guns, gun violence, and firearm suicide, 2020-2021 

Educational Fund To Stop Gun Violence

2017: Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence (EFSGV) released Limiting Access to Lethal Means: Applying the Social Ecological Model for Firearm Suicide Prevention, which was published in Injury Prevention. The paper outlines a novel application of the social ecological model for firearm suicide prevention and assesses the current evidence on the prevention of firearm suicide via interventions to reduce access to firearms and provides recommendations for firearm suicide prevention strategies.

2018: EFSGV to develop, pilot, and refine stakeholder-specific trainings on firearms removal in cases of Gun Violence Restraining Orders (GVROs) and Domestic Violence Restraining Orders (DVROs). This initiative builds on previous Ed Fund work to engage and educate stakeholders across California on the GVRO.

Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence

Funding to support Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence to host two California convenings to provide assistance and trainings to educate judicial officers, court professionals, prosecutors, defense attorneys and probation officers around Gun Violence Restraining Orders (GVRO) and domestic violence firearm relinquishment laws.

The first convening was held in Los Angeles and the second conveneing was held in San Francisco – both were extremely well attended and well received. Through better enforcement of these laws, we can effectively address firearm suicide and firearm deaths and injuries related to domestic violence.

National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR)

Hope and Heal Fund provided funding to support The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR) to produce  reports detailing the costs of gun violence in Stockton and San Bernardino. These reports are an initial assessment designed to be an educational tool for local organizations to show the value of their programs and the savings that can be obtained by redistributing resources to prevention work rather than punitive systems. The city reports highlights the toll gun violence takes – not only in loss of life, but on taxpayer and community resources. All reports from NICJR can be found on their website.

Violence Policy Center

Funding to support the Violence Policy Center’s report “Lethal Hispanic/Latino Firearm Victimization in California” which is a comprehensive report that offers the most recent data available on Latino homicide and suicide victimization in California, and the role played by firearms. Data contained in the study is one component of any baseline measure of the impact of violence prevention initiatives undertaken in the state. Visit our Resource Center to find Key Findings and Recommendations from the report and Data Collection in California in Support of Violence Prevention.

The Williams Institute

The Williams Institute released the report Gun Violence Against Sexual and Gender Minorities in the United States: A Review of Research Findings and Needs, which provides the information available on the intersection between gun violence and the LGBTQ community, and provides a roadmap to fill research gaps to uncover actionable data that will save lives. Gun violence is significantly understudied in relationship to LGBTQ people, this report reviews and synthesizes existing research, recommends a research agenda to fill identified gaps, and discusses implications for gun-violence prevention efforts.

The BulletPoints Project provides clinical tools for firearm injury prevention. A project of the California Firearm Violence Research Center at UC Davis, BulletPoints teaches medical and mental health care providers how to reduce the risk of firearm injury in their patients.

The BulletPoints Project presents new, 2-minute explainer videos on various firearm injury prevention topics. This series was produced with support from the Hope and Heal Fund and Blue Shield of California Foundation.

Episode 1 – Firearm Ownership

In the first episode of the series, BulletPoints covers the various reasons for firearm ownership. Clinicians often think it’s within their responsibilities to help patients reduce risk of firearm injury but cite lack of knowledge as a barrier. Knowing the variety of reasons that people own different types of firearms can help clinicians have informed conversations and make knowledgeable and appropriate safety recommendations.

Episode 2 – Firearm Injury and Death

This second episode covers the epidemiology of firearm injury and death in the United States, including the demographic and geographic distribution of firearm-related harm. Firearm injury is a major public health issue, causing premature death, long-term physical and emotional disability, significant direct emergency and medical expenses, and economic costs to society.

Episode 3 – How to Counsel

The third episode highlights how to have informed and respectful conversations with patients about the risks of firearm access and how to reduce that risk. The majority of clinicians feel that preventing firearm injury is within the scope of their practice, and patients are generally receptive to having these conversations. However, many clinicians don’t routinely counsel patients, often saying they don’t know how to identify risk, how to bring up the topic, or what recommendations to make. Here are helpful tips on how to start these conversations.

Episode 4 – Safe Storage

The fourth episode presents the different ways to responsibly store firearms to support clinicians in having informed, individualized conversations with their patients and making appropriate harm reduction recommendations. Guns that are not stored safely increase the risk of suicide, homicide, and unintentional injury for household members. If a patient has firearms in the home and no one is at immediate risk of harm, clinicians should open a conversation about the importance of safe storage and the available options to reduce the risk of firearm injury and death.

Community Emergency Response Toolkit & Plan

Hope and Heal Fund is working with Resolute Associates LLC to develop a customizable template to create and implement an Emergency Response Plan for use by counties to be able to respond to shootings, including firearm suicides, within the community. We recognize that we are approaching this in a unique way, but we are doing so with three key principles in mind. The first is to tap into existing systems that should be addressing this issue but may not have the resources or expertise. The second principle of design is that by tapping into this existing system, we potentially can institutionalize a standardized approach to preparing for and reducing gun violence. Finally, it is our hope that we can add value to existing systems by identifying gaps and developing resources to fill them.

Community Hub

In November 2020, Hope and Heal Fund invested in a collaborative “community hub” model in Delano, CA to convene key stakeholders to support comprehensive strategies to address all forms of gun violence. The model includes key stakeholders like law enforcement, city officials, judges, non-profit providers, faith leaders, and school officials to ensure that key community members impacted by gun violence have a say in what strategies the city should pursue. The process exposes data pertinent to gun violence and other health and well-being factors are presented to all participants, enabling stakeholders the opportunity to be exposed to a variety of models and experts working within the gun violence reduction field. Strategies will be decided in the key areas of prevention, intervention, gun access, and trauma aftercare. We’re pleased to work with our network partners who have agreed to support these efforts, including the City of San Jose, Advance Peace, Youth Alive!, and National Compadres Network.

We will be replicating our approach in the many mid-size to smaller impacted cities across California to expose them to effective and evaluated strategies and encourage jurisdictions to utilize local, state, and federal public funding for implementation.

Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence

Building on the Spring 2017 grant and the Injury Prevention paper “Limiting Access to Lethal Means: Applying the Social Ecological Model for Firearm Suicide Prevention”  Hope and Heal Fund provided a grant to the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence (Ed Fund) to create a comprehensive new website: Prevent Firearm Suicide. The new website outlines firearm suicide prevention interventions aimed at limiting access to lethal means across all four levels of the social-ecological model; shares information on the intersection of firearms and suicide, including risk factors and statistics; illustrates state-level firearm suicide data for all 50 states and the District of Columbia; and hosts a robust directory of educational materials, initiatives, research, and other resources about firearm suicide prevention and means safety.

Beyond Police Reform

Our Racial Equity Officer, Cuco Rodriguez, and Dr. Aquil Basheer from The Brotherhood Unified for Independent Leadership Through Discipline (BUILD) Program are co-facilitating a national think tank with criminal justice reform leaders to develop a roadmap for local communities in California and across the country to change public safety systems and go beyond basic police reform. There is a tremendous opportunity to impact those systems that perpetuate mass incarceration and violence in BIPOC communities. While many are focused solely on police reform, we know that law enforcement is only the tip of the iceberg of racial injustice and state-sanctioned violence. Two virtual convenings were held in 2020 and this spring we will collectively produce the ‘Black and Brown Paper’ (roadmap).

Education Day for Legislators: Violence Prevention Efforts

On March 27, 2019, Alliance for Boys and Men of Color and Hope and Heal Fund hosted an educational briefing for California policy leaders concerned with furthering a bold paradigm shift in addressing violence, by emphasizing community oriented, asset-based empowerment approaches to peacemaking, restorative justice, healing, and safety.

Transforming Communities, Fostering Hope Summit

On May 31, 2018, Hope and Heal Fund, along with the Giffords Law Center and the California Alliance for Boys and Men of Color, sponsored a summit that connected community advocates from across California to successful community-based strategies for gun violence prevention. Recordings of the summit can be viewed here.

Inland Congregations United for Change (ICUC)

Approved in June 2019, funding will be used to support Inland Congregations United for Change (ICUC) to conduct convenings in San Bernardino to gain support and raise awareness for hospital-based gun violence interventions.