Community Violence Prevention Workforce Development

Supporting Atlanta's Community Violence Prevention Workforce

Members of the CVP workforce during the 2026 Community Violence Prevention Forum

Community violence prevention (CVP) describes a community-centered approach to creating safer neighborhoods. It focuses on addressing the root causes of violence, supporting those most affected by it, and strengthening the conditions that help individuals, families and communities thrive.  


Atlanta has a growing network of people and organizations committed to this work, and CVP workers are at the center of this ecosystem. They build trust, connect people to resources, support those at highest risk, advocate for community needs, and help create the conditions that allow neighborhoods to thrive. 


To support and strengthen this workforce, the Injury Prevention Research Center at Emory (IPRCE) partnered with Circle of Safety and CVP practitioners across Atlanta to develop a set of Core Competencies for Atlanta's Community Violence Prevention Workforce. 


These competencies provide a shared framework for the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to effectively carry out CVP work. They will be used to identify the most pressing training needs amongst Atlanta’s CVP workforce so that stakeholders can create a sustainable training infrastructure. 

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What is Community Violence Prevention?

Community violence prevention is a public health approach to preventing violence before it happens, while also addressing the conditions that contribute to it.  

One part of this work is community violence intervention (CVI)-- trusted community members who engage people at the highest risk of violence through outreach and conflict mediation, and connect them to wraparound supports.  

People who do this work include: 

  • Violence interrupters  
  • Outreach workers  
  • Peer support specialists  
  • Program coordinators  
  • Community organizers  
  • Youth mentors  
  • Hospital-based violence intervention staff  
  • Neighborhood-based violence prevention practitioners   

Atlanta's Community Violence Prevention Ecosystem

IPRCE is committed to supporting Atlanta’s network of organizations and individuals working to prevent violence and support those affected by it. These folks lead efforts that improve the conditions that often contribute to violence, such as housing instability, underemployment, lack of healthcare, and others.

 The community violence prevention ecosystem includes:  

  • Community-based organizations  
  • Hospital-based violence intervention programs  
  • Academic and research institutions 
  • Youth-serving organizations  
  • Faith-based organizations  
  • Government partners  
  • Public health professionals  

IPRCE supports the CVP ecosystem through participatory research partnerships, training and technical assistance, and convenings that promote collaborative and community-led solutions to violence. Our partners work alongside community members to prevent and reduce violence through outreach, mentorship, case management, advocacy, conflict mediation, workforce development, and community healing.  

 

IPRCE and partners meet for the 2023 Emory Violence Prevention Symposium featuring a panel of leaders of community-based organizations who are actively working across components of the community violence prevention ecosystem.

IPRCE and partners meet for the 2023 Emory Violence Prevention Symposium featuring a panel of leaders of community-based organizations who are actively working across components of the community violence prevention ecosystem.

 

Developing Core Competencies for Atlanta's CVP Workforce

Core competencies are the foundational knowledge, skills, and abilities that support effective work in a particular field. The core competencies for Atlanta’s CVP Workforce describe a comprehensive set of skills that folks working in this space must be comfortable with to do this work well. Not every role requires expertise in every competency—different positions call for different levels of proficiency.  

Sets of core competencies exist for almost every field adjacent to CVP, but none have been developed specifically for the CVP workforce. Despite the growth of community violence prevention efforts across Atlanta, there has historically been no shared framework describing the core skills needed for this work. We address this gap by developing the core competencies, which can help: 

  • Identify CVP workforce training needs  
  • Strengthen professional development opportunities  
  • Support CVP workforce development  
  • Build capacity across Atlanta's violence prevention ecosystem  

Important: These competencies were developed to serve as a shared reference point, not a path to certification or credentialing.   

The competencies were developed through a modified Delphi process combining national best practices with local expertise:  

  1. Reviewed existing frameworks from public health, injury and violence prevention, social work, community health work, youth development, and social justice. Also reviewed training materials from national CVI leaders including Advance Pace, the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR), and the Community Based Public Safety (CBPS) Collective (see Table 1).  
  2. Built a master list of competencies, organized into ten thematic domains, removing duplicates and anything not directly relevant to CVP work.  
  3. Gathered feedback from Atlanta CVP partners during the Community Violence Prevention Workforce Development Forum (February 5th, 2026).  
  4. Revised competencies based on feedback. Key changes included: 
        a. Simpler, less academic language 
        b. Clearer distinction between competencies for frontline staff vs. leadership/management 
        c. Descriptions refined to better reflect the day-to-day realities of CVP work in Atlanta 

Download Full Methodology

 

Core Competency Domains

The framework includes competencies across ten key domains. View the 10 core competencies below.  
Download the full list here.

Download the plain language core competencies here.

For Frontline Workers, Staff, Leadership and Management: 

  1. Ability to describe and explain violence as a social and public health problem 
  2. Ability to access, interpret, use, and communicate data 
  3. Ability to collaborate, coordinate, and build community power 
  4. Ability to implement violence prevention and intervention activities  
  5. Ability to communicate and disseminate violence prevention information 
  6. Ability to advance professional development and well-being 

For Leadership and Management: 

  1. Ability to design violence prevention and intervention activities 
  2. Ability to monitor and evaluate violence prevention and intervention activities 
  3. Ability to advance systems change through policy, advocacy, and education 
  4. Ability to manage and sustain violence prevention programs
 

Next Steps: Training Needs Assessment

Help Shape Future Workforce Development Opportunities  

To better understand the training priorities of Atlanta's community violence prevention workforce, IPRCE will support the development of a Training Needs Assessment based on the Core Competencies Framework.  
The assessment will help identify: 

  • Areas of existing strength  
  • Topics where additional training may be helpful  
  • Workforce development priorities  
  • Organizational capacity-building needs 
Stay tuned! The assessment will be available for download on this page once finalized.