OFVP Firearm Violence Research Group Meeting Minutes, January 17, 2023

Tuesday, January 17, 2023

9:30am - 11:00AM

via zoom

Meeting Called to order @9:33am

Notetaker: Jessica Cortez

  1. Welcome/Roll Call/Approval of Minutes by Joe Hoereth, PhD, Director, Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement, University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) and Assistant Secretary Christopher Patterson, Office of Firearm Violence Prevention, Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS)
    • FVRG Members Present: 
      1. Joe Hoereth,
      2. Tammy Kochel,
      3. Darryl Kroner,
      4. Timothy Lavery,
      5. Dave Olson, J
      6. on Patterson,
      7. Eric Reinhart
    • FVRG Members Absent:
      1. Andrew Papachristos,
      2. Lance Williams,
      3. Kimberly Smith,
      4. Soledad McGrath
    • Other Attendees:
      1. Dana Kelly,
      2. Christopher Patterson,
      3. Ana Genkova,
      4. Jaqueline Carrillo,
      5. Jakub Krynski,
      6. Julia Hage,
      7. Karla Urbas,
      8. Katie Pelech (Northwestern) ,
      9. Latanya Law,
      10. Marli White,
      11. Millicent McCoy(ICJA),
      12. Patricia Holling,
      13. Rebecca Weiland,
      14. Roy Rothschild,
      15. Sarah Pointer,
      16. Su Burtner (Northwestern),
      17. Theresa Everist
    • September 20, 2022 meeting minutes were approved by consensus. November 15, 2022 meeting minutes were approved by consensus with two corrections.
      • Page 4:We accessed out of the court system even on simple things like street lights. We are looking at both SIU and cities data from a police stand point. We looked at the following:
      • Page 4: Third paragraph down changed Carbondale to Carbondale.
    • Welcome - Assistant Secretary Patterson welcomed FVRG members to meeting
    • Joe Hoereth welcomed the following guest speakers from Northwestern Neighborhood Initiative:
      1. Katie Pelech, Project Lead
      2. Su Burton, Scientific Director
      3. Rebecca Weiland, Assistant Director
  2. Public Comment - Subject to written comment in advance
    • No public comments received
  3. Discussion & Work Items: Dana Kelly, Chief Policy Advisor, Illinois Department of Human Services
    1. Office of Firearm Violence and Prevention Update - Assistant Secretary Christopher Patterson provided an update on OFVP. 
      • Going into 2023 OFVP is anticipated by February having potentially close to 180, maybe even 200 providers since they have started. 
      • Through the IDHS NOFO process there are now 14 notices of funding opportunities. 
      • Out of 180 providers there are a handful of larger providers and have been really intentional around bringing smaller providers into this work. 
      • Pre and post capacity building apparatus setup so our organizations that are being funded particularly organizations that are newer and smaller and don't have a back office administration are going to have TA and training entities attached to them. 
      • Added an accounting firm Earnst & Young that will support organizations.
      • Dana Kelly provided a number-based update on OFVP -
      • OFVP has funded four different program applications in Greater Illinois that are going to support and launch services.
      • Between Chicago and Greater Illinois OFVP made 184 awards to 106 grantees and over 118 million distributed. 
      • Two projects are in final contracting pieces and hope to distribute another 40 million between those two organizations to provide street outreach services.
      • OFVP has secured 150 million out of the 250 million that OFVP was given through ARPA.
    2. Discussion on Corners Evaluation of Intergovernmental Partnership - Guests speakers from Northwestern Neighborhood Initiative presented Powerpoint sharing an overview of the evaluation of the Corners program.
      1. Project Background
        1. Violence Prevention Intergovernmental Partnership (IGP)
        2. City of Chicago
        3. Cook County Justice Advisory Council (JAC)
        4. Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (ICJIA)
        5. Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS)
      2. ARPA funding coordination goals:
        1. Shared priorities and definitions of violence reduction
        2. Review of existing funding and programming in the space
        3. Less duplication and greater impact with limited grantee burden
        4. Organizational capacity building
      3. Research Objectives
        1. Process Evaluation
          1. Documentation of IGP implementation and coordination of investments.
          2. Development of lessons learned for future grantmaking.
        2. Impact Evaluation
          1. Demonstrating the community level impact of ARPA-funded programs. 
          2. Understanding cohort capacity building and program implementation.
      4. Questions & Comments
        1. FVRG Member Reinhart: What are your anticipated data sources for some of these things? For example, perceptions of trust and safety, but also wondering if you're planning to include health outcomes.
          1. Katie Pelech: Not yet built the data points for this one thing. We are pretty early in the process of thinking through what these data sources might be particularly for areas outside of Chicago. The point about healthcare costs is a good one and it's something that would be helpful for us to consider.
        2. Dana Kelly: The intergovernmental group was trying to collect some uniform data from our participating grantees and this group may have reviewed that tool at one point in the past. How are you planning to incorporate programmatic data collection into your analysis? How can we continue to contribute to your thinking and evaluation, how can we stay in touch?
          1. Katie Pelech: I want to put a PIN in to say we would like to stay in touch and understand what that might look like. We had looked at the excel spreadsheet of metrics tha IGP is planning on collecting from providers.
            1. How many folks are serving?
            2. Who are they serving?
            3. Where are they serving them?
            4. What kind of services?
            5. Thinking of how to incorporate some of that descriptive information in the border to understand the ways in which we're going to see and contextualize. FVRG Member Olson: In addition to ARPA money there's a lot of other sources of money that are going into these exact same communities through the program. The cannabis tax there's more money going into substance abuse and treatment services.
        3. FVRG Member Olson: In addition to ARPA money there's a lot of other sources of money that are going into these exact same communities through the program. The cannabis tax there's more money going into substance abuse and treatment services.
    3. Presentation on Available Data Sources for "State of Firearms Violence in Illinois
    4. FVRG member Olson presented available data sources for the state of firearms violence in Illinois that has been discussed in the FVRG group as a product that could be worked on together.
      • Joe Hoereth: This would serve two purposes the first being to start to address some of the barriers, compiling, and accessing the data needed to properly assess for measuring firearms violence in Illinois, but also allowing us to drill down to localities that we need. The second is the actual sort of assessment itself whatever shape or form that is the compilation of that data.
      • FVRG member Lavery: It will also be helpful to just explain the different sources' pros and cons limitations when it might be best to use them.
      • FVRG member Kroner: Strong suggestions on how things could be done a little bit better so that systems can talk to each other more efficiently.
  4. Next Steps
    1. Action items - Joe Hoereth will look for a couple of more members to help with data. Tim and Dave will work with Joe Hoereth.
    2. Proposed Next Meeting Date/ Time - Tuesday, March 21st 9:30am
  5. Adjournment - Meeting Adjourned @ 11:01am