68 Forward Initiative - Ohio's Movement Against Gun Violence

Across Ohio, communities are grappling with a crisis that touches every corner of our state—gun violence that tears apart families, traumatizes neighborhoods, and leaves lasting scars on the collective psyche of our communities. The 68 Forward Initiative Ohio represents a comprehensive, statewide response to this urgent challenge, bringing together evidence-based strategies, trauma-informed care, youth empowerment, and policy advocacy to create safer communities for all Ohioans. Led by I Define in partnership with community organizations, educators, health professionals, and families affected by violence, this gun violence prevention Ohio program recognizes that sustainable change requires addressing root causes, supporting those impacted, and building systems that protect rather than perpetuate harm. The community safety program framework of 68 Forward provides a blueprint for transformation—moving Ohio forward from crisis to healing, from reactive responses to proactive prevention, and from fragmented efforts to coordinated action that saves lives and strengthens communities.

Introduction—What Is the 68 Forward Initiative?

What is 68 Forward begins with understanding the context that made this initiative necessary. Ohio ranks among states experiencing significant gun violence impacts, with communities across the state—from urban centers like Cleveland, Columbus, and Dayton to smaller cities and rural areas—confronting the devastating consequences of shootings, homicides, and armed conflicts. The human toll is staggering: lives cut short, families shattered, communities traumatized, and cycles of violence perpetuating across generations.

Gun violence Ohio communities experience isn’t random or inevitable—it’s a public health crisis with identifiable risk factors and evidence-based solutions. Research demonstrates that violence concentrates in specific geographic areas, affects particular populations disproportionately, and follows predictable patterns that can be interrupted through strategic intervention. The challenge hasn’t been lack of knowledge about what works but rather lack of coordinated, sustained, adequately resourced efforts implementing proven strategies at scale.

The 68 Forward Initiative emerged from recognition that piecemeal approaches addressing isolated aspects of gun violence cannot generate the systemic change Ohio needs. Individual programs might serve specific populations or address particular risk factors, but without coordination, they leave gaps that violence exploits. Without adequate funding, they cannot reach everyone who needs support. Without community ownership, they remain external impositions rather than organic solutions emerging from affected communities themselves.

This statewide initiative takes comprehensive approach, recognizing that preventing gun violence requires simultaneous action across multiple domains. It must interrupt active conflicts before they escalate to shootings. It must address trauma that fuels cycles of violence. It must provide alternatives for young people at risk of involvement in violence. It must change policies and systems that facilitate rather than prevent harm. And it must support families and communities healing from violence’s impacts.

The initiative’s name—68 Forward—carries significance rooted in Ohio’s identity and aspirations. It represents commitment to moving forward together, leaving behind approaches that haven’t worked and embracing strategies proven effective. It symbolizes the collective determination of Ohioans across the state to create safer futures for children, families, and communities. And it reflects the belief that by working together with transparency, accountability, and genuine commitment to healing, Ohio can become a national model for comprehensive gun violence prevention.

68 Forward operates through collaborative network spanning the state, bringing together diverse stakeholders who contribute unique expertise, resources, and perspectives. This includes community-based organizations with deep roots in neighborhoods most affected by violence, educational institutions preparing young people for productive futures, health and mental health providers addressing trauma and supporting healing, law enforcement agencies committed to community safety, policymakers working to change systems and laws, faith communities offering spiritual support and moral leadership, and most importantly, families and community members with lived experience of violence who guide the initiative with wisdom earned through painful experience.

The initiative recognizes that those closest to problems are closest to solutions. Rather than imposing top-down interventions designed by people disconnected from violence’s realities, 68 Forward centers voices of those directly impacted, ensuring strategies reflect authentic community needs and leverage existing community strengths. This community-centered approach distinguishes 68 Forward from traditional criminal justice responses that often alienate the very communities they claim to serve.

Vision & Values—Transparency, Accountability, and Healing

The initiative values Ohio communities can observe in 68 Forward’s approach reflect deep commitment to doing this work with integrity, effectiveness, and genuine care for people most affected by violence. These values aren’t just aspirational statements but operational principles guiding every decision and action.

Transparency sits at the foundation of the initiative. 68 Forward commits to open communication about strategies, funding, challenges, and results. Community members can access information about how resources are allocated, what programs are being implemented, and what outcomes are being achieved. This transparency builds trust—essential currency in communities where institutions have often broken promises or operated in ways that harmed rather than helped. When mistakes happen or strategies prove ineffective, 68 Forward acknowledges these openly rather than defensively, using failures as opportunities for learning and improvement.

Accountability ensures that 68 Forward remains responsive to communities it serves. The initiative establishes clear metrics for success, tracks progress rigorously, and reports results honestly. It creates feedback mechanisms allowing community members to raise concerns, offer suggestions, and hold leadership accountable for commitments made. Accountability extends to partner organizations receiving funding—they must demonstrate effective use of resources and positive outcomes for participants. This accountability isn’t punitive but supportive, recognizing that achieving difficult goals requires both high expectations and adequate support.

Trauma-informed collaboration recognizes that violence creates wounds—in individuals, families, and entire communities. 68 Forward approaches all work through trauma-informed lens, understanding how trauma impacts behavior, relationships, and capacity to engage. This means creating safe environments for participation, offering flexibility to accommodate trauma responses, communicating with sensitivity to triggers and retraumatization risks, and prioritizing healing as central goal rather than treating trauma as peripheral issue. Trauma-informed approaches extend to how partner organizations work together—recognizing that even professionals working in violence prevention carry vicarious trauma requiring attention and support.

Healing represents the ultimate aim of 68 Forward. While preventing future violence matters critically, healing past and present wounds deserves equal emphasis. The initiative understands that hurt people hurt people—that unhealed trauma often fuels violence cycles. By prioritizing healing—through mental health services, restorative practices, community-building activities, and cultural approaches to wellness—68 Forward addresses violence’s roots while supporting those already impacted to find pathways forward that don’t involve perpetuating harm.

Equity and Justice guide resource allocation and strategy design. 68 Forward recognizes that violence doesn’t impact all Ohio communities equally—it concentrates in neighborhoods characterized by poverty, disinvestment, racial segregation, and lack of opportunity. These patterns reflect historical and ongoing injustices rather than inherent characteristics of residents. The initiative commits to directing resources toward most-impacted communities, addressing systemic factors that create vulnerability to violence, and working toward justice—not just safety achieved through punitive approaches but genuine justice where all Ohioans have opportunity to thrive.

Transparency advocacy extends beyond internal operations to challenging systems and institutions to operate more openly and accountably. 68 Forward advocates for transparency in how criminal justice systems handle violence cases, how resources are allocated across communities, and how decisions affecting community safety are made. This advocacy recognizes that sustainable change requires not just better programs but transformed systems operating with integrity and genuine community accountability.

These values create culture within 68 Forward and standards for partnership. Organizations joining the initiative must align with these values, demonstrating commitment to transparency, accountability, trauma-informed practice, healing, and equity in their own work. This values alignment ensures coherent approach across diverse partners and contexts.

Program Pillars—Prevent, Promote, Protect

The three-pronged approach of 68 Forward—Prevent, Promote, and Protect—provides comprehensive framework addressing violence at multiple levels and stages, from prevention before violence occurs to accountability for harm done to protection and support for those impacted.

Prevent focuses on stopping violence before it happens through community-based intervention Ohio strategies that interrupt conflicts, provide alternatives for at-risk individuals, and address conditions that breed violence. Prevention recognizes that violence is predictable and therefore preventable when appropriate interventions reach people and communities at elevated risk.

Promote emphasizes promoting accountability, healing, and transformation for individuals who have caused harm. Rather than simply punishing violence through incarceration that often increases future risk, this pillar works toward genuine accountability that includes taking responsibility, making amends where possible, and changing patterns to prevent future harm. It promotes healing for people who hurt others, recognizing that perpetrators are often trauma survivors themselves whose pain manifests as violence toward others.

Protect commits to protecting Ohio families by providing comprehensive support for those impacted by violence—both direct victims and broader family and community members traumatized by violence in their midst. Protection includes immediate crisis response, ongoing mental health support, advocacy through systems, and long-term healing resources that help families recover and rebuild.

Community-Based Intervention

Community-based intervention represents frontline violence prevention work, placing violence interrupters and community harm prevention specialists in neighborhoods experiencing concentrated violence. These trained professionals, often with lived experience of violence themselves, work to interrupt conflicts before they escalate to shootings.

Violence interrupters build relationships with individuals at highest risk of involvement in violence—both as perpetrators and victims. They maintain constant presence in communities, making themselves available 24/7 to mediate conflicts, provide counsel during crises, and connect people to resources and alternatives. When they learn of brewing conflicts, they intervene directly—bringing parties together for mediation, leveraging relationships to de-escalate tensions, and sometimes physically interposing themselves between potential combatants.

This work requires deep community knowledge and trust. Interrupters must be respected by individuals involved in violence, understanding street codes and dynamics while offering pathways away from violence. They serve as living proof that change is possible, embodying the transformation they encourage in others.

Community-based intervention also includes strategic deployment of resources to “hot spots”—specific locations where violence concentrates. Rather than spreading resources thinly across entire cities, focused deterrence approaches concentrate intervention in highest-need areas, maximizing impact. This targeting is based on data analysis identifying patterns while ensuring equity by directing resources toward most-impacted communities.

The community harm prevention framework extends beyond individual intervention to community-level strategies: organizing residents for collective action, improving environmental conditions that facilitate violence (lighting, vacant buildings, etc.), creating positive activities and gathering spaces that build community cohesion, and advocating for resources and investment addressing structural factors underlying violence.

Youth Education

Youth education gun violence initiatives recognize that young people represent both those most vulnerable to violence and the greatest opportunity for prevention. By engaging youth before they become deeply involved in violence, education programs can alter trajectories and break intergenerational cycles.

Trauma-informed support provided through educational programs acknowledges that many young people in violence-impacted communities carry significant trauma affecting learning, behavior, and relationships. Educational approaches must account for trauma’s impacts—providing safety, flexibility, and healing alongside academic content. Teachers and youth workers receive training in recognizing trauma responses and responding therapeutically rather than punitively.

Youth education includes violence prevention curricula teaching conflict resolution, emotional regulation, and decision-making skills. These evidence-based programs help young people develop capacities for managing disputes peacefully, understanding consequences of choices, and resisting peer pressure toward violence involvement. Curricula address specific risk factors including gang recruitment, weapon carrying, and retaliation dynamics.

Leadership development programs cultivate youth as violence prevention advocates and community change agents. Rather than viewing young people only as potential perpetrators or victims, these programs recognize youth leadership potential. Participants learn organizing skills, develop public speaking capacity, engage with policymakers, and lead peer education efforts. Many become powerful voices for change, bringing authenticity and urgency that adult advocates cannot match.

Mentoring programs connect at-risk youth with positive adult role models who provide guidance, support, and accountability. These relationships offer young people someone who believes in their potential and walks alongside them through challenges. Effective mentoring proves particularly powerful for youth lacking positive adult connections in their lives.

Educational initiatives also include alternatives to suspension and expulsion policies that push vulnerable youth out of school and into streets where violence risk escalates. Restorative practices keep young people engaged in education while addressing problematic behavior through accountability and repair rather than punishment that often exacerbates problems.

Mental Health & Trauma Support

Mental health violence prevention recognizes that trauma and untreated mental health challenges significantly increase violence risk—both victimization and perpetration. Trauma support Ohio families receive through 68 Forward provides comprehensive services addressing these needs.

Counseling services offer individual and group therapy for violence survivors, witnesses, and those at risk of perpetrating harm. Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy and other evidence-based approaches help individuals process traumatic experiences, develop healthy coping mechanisms, and reduce psychological distress that might otherwise manifest as violence.

Crisis counseling provides immediate support following violent incidents. Mobile crisis teams deploy to violence scenes, offering on-site support for those traumatized. Follow-up services ensure that crisis intervention connects to ongoing care rather than leaving people to manage alone after initial shock passes.

Healing circles and community processing spaces allow collective trauma healing. Violence impacts not just direct victims but entire communities; collective healing approaches acknowledge this shared impact while building community resilience and cohesion. These circles draw on cultural traditions and contemporary therapeutic practices, creating hybrid approaches culturally relevant to diverse communities.

School-based mental health services ensure young people can access support where they spend most of their time. School counselors, social workers, and psychologists trained in trauma and violence prevention provide services reducing barriers of transportation, stigma, and cost that often prevent families from accessing community-based mental health care.

Substance abuse treatment addresses addiction issues that often intersect with violence. Many individuals involved in violence struggle with substance use—both cause and consequence of trauma. Integrated treatment addressing both trauma and addiction proves more effective than separate services for these commonly co-occurring issues.

Peer support programs connect people with lived experience of violence and recovery who can offer unique understanding and hope. Peers who have navigated healing journeys provide credible role models and practical guidance for those earlier in the process.

Policy & Advocacy

Policy advocacy gun violence work recognizes that sustainable change requires not just better programs but transformed policies and systems. Ohio policy initiative efforts through 68 Forward include multiple strategies for influencing legislation, administrative policy, and system operations.

Legislative advocacy pushes for evidence-based gun violence prevention laws including universal background checks, extreme risk protection orders, safe storage requirements, and assault weapon restrictions. While politically challenging, 68 Forward maintains persistent advocacy grounded in research, lived experience testimony, and broad coalition-building that includes diverse stakeholders.

Budget advocacy ensures adequate funding for violence prevention and intervention services. Too often, communities receive mandates to address violence without resources to implement effective strategies. 68 Forward advocates at state and local levels for budgets reflecting true costs of comprehensive approaches, arguing that prevention investments save money compared to costs of violence and mass incarceration.

Criminal justice reform advocacy addresses how justice system responses sometimes exacerbate rather than reduce violence. This includes advocating for alternatives to incarceration for non-violent offenses, reducing overly long sentences that don’t improve safety, banning juvenile life without parole, and ensuring formerly incarcerated people can successfully reintegrate with access to housing, employment, and support services.

Educational policy advocacy works to keep vulnerable youth in school through alternatives to exclusionary discipline, adequate funding for mental health and support services, and trauma-informed practices throughout educational systems.

Coalition-building brings together diverse partners—community organizations, faith leaders, healthcare providers, educators, business leaders, and directly impacted families—to speak with unified voice for policy change. Broad coalitions prove more influential than narrow advocacy, demonstrating that gun violence prevention transcends typical political divides.

Resources & Support for Families

Ohio family support gun violence services through 68 Forward ensure that families impacted by violence can get help trauma Ohio communities provide through coordinated resource networks. Counseling resources initiative participants can access include multiple levels of support addressing diverse needs.

Comprehensive resource directories connect families to services including mental health counseling, legal advocacy, financial assistance, housing support, employment services, and educational programs. Navigating complex service systems while dealing with trauma and grief overwhelms many families; resource coordination helps ensure they can access needed support without administrative burdens creating additional stress.

Victim advocacy services provide trained advocates who walk alongside families through immediate aftermath of violence and long-term recovery process. Advocates help with practical matters including funeral expenses, crime victim compensation claims, navigating criminal justice proceedings, and accessing ongoing services. They offer emotional support and connection to peer support networks.

Family support groups bring together people who have lost loved ones to violence or who are supporting family members involved in violence. These groups provide space for sharing experiences, processing grief and trauma, and finding strength through connection with others who understand uniquely difficult circumstances.

Educational resources help families understand trauma responses, support children impacted by violence, navigate systems, and access their rights. Written materials, workshops, and online resources provide information in accessible formats.

Hotlines and helplines offer 24/7 access to support when families need immediate assistance. Crisis counselors provide emotional support, safety planning, and referrals to appropriate services. The availability of round-the-clock support recognizes that trauma doesn’t operate on business hours—families may need help at any time.

Legal clinics provide pro bono legal assistance for families dealing with violence-related legal issues including protective orders, victim compensation claims, housing issues following violence in units, and expungement for family members whose past violence involvement creates barriers to employment and stability.

Financial assistance programs help families manage costs associated with violence including funeral expenses, medical bills, temporary housing, lost wages, and relocation when staying in current housing presents safety risks. The financial devastation violence causes often receives less attention than physical and emotional trauma, yet creates substantial barriers to recovery.