Chicago’s Peace Outreach Continues as Gun Violence Takes No Break
Amidst the continual backdrop of COVID-19, Chicago’s plague of gun violence has raged on, and over several weekends spiked higher than previous years. Almost no other group is seeing the broad effects of these events more than the outreach workers of Communities Partnering 4 Peace, or CP4P, a city-wide collaborative of community-based organizations whose outreach teams are trained to prevent and intervene in violence using restorative de-escalation tactics. Coordinated by Metropolitan Family Services, the teams are in communities most impacted by violence. “When COVID-19 was on the rise in Chicago in early March, we saw our situation go from bad to worse,” said Vaughn Bryant, CP4P’s executive director. “Our teams were beginning to experience additional sadness, frustration, and anger as they themselves were having to deal with the virus while still managing to do their jobs to help curb shootings.” The outreach teams acted quickly and were prepared with the necessary PPE to maint