Our Impact

Creating a Culture of Supportive Evaluation

Within the East Baltimore community that we serve, we have created a culture of mutually supportive, ongoing evaluation in which community members work together to hold themselves and their families and peers accountable. Key to this culture of supportive evaluation is the loving, clear, and restorative ways that community members learn to talk with one another and campaign for peace within their familial and neighborly networks.

We apply mixed qualitative and quantitative methods to measure the impact of our programming on enrollees and gain data, including the following:

• Self-reporting in quarterly and annual focus groups and individual counseling sessions about community members reduction of violent incidents and wellness; 
• Self-reporting using surveys with both multiple choice and open-ended questions (including "Peace Tracker" forms); 
• Observations of transformed behavior by adult staff, parents, and other family members; and 
• Archival research in investigative journalism as well as court and law enforcement records that document incidences of violence within the area that we serve. 

Peace Tracking

Each month, community members within our Parent Peacemakers program fill out a confidential written "Peace Tracker" form that describes at least 3 incidents within the month in which they used their peacemaking training to mediate a conflict and find peace. Some of their stories involve finding peace and working through conflicts within themselves. Some involve working through conflicts with other people. A few community members submit Peace Trackers in audio form due to literacy issues. Staff members converse with community members about what is said in the Peace Trackers within counseling sessions. These Peace Trackers also provide ongoing stories about how community members elevate their leadership as peacemakers and achieve nonviolence. 

Violence Prevention and Wellness Campaigns

Community members' campaigns have decisively helped stem the tide of violence and promote wellness within the lives of the approximately 200 community members that Wisdom Projects serves each year. In turn, these people's campaigns have reached scores more individuals within their familial and peer networks.

Using information from their training and evaluations, community members develop informational campaigns about peacemaking and wellness. These campaigns disseminate information by word-of-mouth or within social media posts, online chat group discussions, or video uploads to private online groups. 

Many of these campaigns occur privately within community members' closed familial or social networks. The privacy helps protect and uphold the confidentiality of community members who may have arrest or conviction records or who may be discussing sensitive information amongst themselves. The emphasis on privacy also helps community members avoid censure and mistreatment from people in their community who are not committed to nonviolence and who sometimes mock the peacemaking efforts of community members.

No campaigns include mention of major crimes (such as murder, rape, assault, burglary, larceny, robbery, arson, vandalism, trafficking, drug commerce, and kidnapping), and neither Wisdom Projects or community members are harboring or abetting criminal activity of any kind. 

Metrics

To determine the positive impact of the programming, we use the aforementioned approaches to measure 20 key metrics listed below (see the "Milestones" section after this list for data on our current successes in achieving each metric):

1. Ending homicides and suicides. 
2. Reducing evictions. 
3. Strengthening peaceful families. 
4. Disarming. 
5. Reducing domestic violence. 
6. Reducing youth arrests and convictions. 
7. Reducing adult incarceration. 
8. Reducing violence against women, trans, nonbinary, and LGBTQ+ individuals. 
9. Reducing verbal violence. 
10. Cultivating recovery.
11. Reducing corporal punishment.
12. Elevating mental health. 
13. Reducing stress and anxiety. 
14. Uplifting leadership capacities.
15. Cultivating improved senses of self. 
16. Coping with poverty. 
17. Coping with bias. 
18. Improved scholastic achievement. 
19. Improved foodways. 
20. Enhanced disease prevention.

As a result of these measures, from 2019-2023, we achieved the following milestones for violence prevention, justice, and wellness for approximately 200 community members enrolled in our programming:

1. Ending homicides. At a time when upwards of 300 killings occur each year in the city (with several per week oftentimes), and the suicide rate rose in 2022 by 8 percent, since we began our work in 2019, no one enrolled in our current programming has endured homicides and suicides due to gun violence or people-to-people perpetrated incidents of violence.
2. Reducing evictions. Since 2019, only 1 individual out of all those enrolled in our programs has been evicted due to a breach of lease for violence. This statistic is important because housing insecurity stands as one of the biggest barriers to peaceful living for the population that we serve in the housing projects. Helping them maintain housing by not breaching their leases nonviolence requirements is one of our most important missions.
3. Strengthening peaceful families. In 2019, in our conversations with community members, we discovered that violence often roots in problematic, un-healed relationships within community members' intergenerational families (both the families into which communities are born and those they choose). Since then, each year, over 90 percent of community members tell us that our training in de-escalation and managing conflicts peacefully has helped them mend bridges, strengthen relationships, heal broken ties, and, ultimately, maintain nonviolence within their families.
4. Disarming. In 2019, 71 percent of our enrollees reported having access to guns. By the summer of 2023, all relevant surveyed enrollees reported legally registering their firearms, storing them safely in locked receptacles away from youth, or using nearby Washington, D.C.'s Voluntary Surrender of Firearms program to disarm without fear of prosecution. (Washington D.C. has the Safe Harbor Act that allows individuals to surrender firearms without fear of being charged. The State of Maryland and Baltimore City does not have a similar statute at the time of this writing.)
5. Reducing domestic violence. When we began our work, the rate of domestic violence and intimate-partner violence was high among community members at 46 percent. This meant that almost half of enrolled community members were involved either as survivors/victims or perpetrators in monthly incidents of domestic violence and intimate-partner violence each year. By the beginning of 2022, we reduced the rate to 13 percent and holding. 
6. Reducing youth arrests and convictions. When we began our work, 42 percent of middle and high school aged youth in our programming had contact with the criminal or juvenile justice systems through arrest or conviction. By the beginning of 2023, only 4 percent of enrolled youth were arrested and, since 2020, no youth enrollee has been convicted of a crime. 
7. Reducing adult incarceration. Many adult enrollees have endured incarceration or their relatives have endured incarceration (approximately 65 percent of enrollees). Since 2021, we have reduced the number of incarcerations (pre-trial and post-conviction) among our adult community members to 6 percent.
8. Reducing violence against women, trans, nonbinary, and LGBTQ+ individuals. 74 percent of our women, trans, and non-binary enrollees are adult survivors of physical violence and sexual violence. 34 percent have survived sex trafficking. By the summer of 2023, 80 percent of these enrollees (with slight variations for each form of violence) reported that our focus on de-escalation, trauma-informed care, and mindfulness helped them cope with their trauma. They also reported the cessation of self-harm and a reduction or elimination of harm against them based on our guidance in setting boundaries and seeking peer support. These community members also reported improved capacities to enter recovery for addiction and take advantage of our referrals for mental health treatment.
9. Reducing verbal violence. We have drastically reduced verbal incidents of harassment, bullying, and intimidation. At the outset of our work, 61 percent of all enrolled youth and adults reported involvement in this kind of verbal violence. By 2022, 23 percent of enrollees reported involvement in this violence.
10. Cultivating recovery. Addiction and substance use disorder are major factors in verbal and physical violence. A majority of our adult enrollees have experienced addiction and recovery (approximately 68 percent). We have helped 78 community members commit to recovery and addiction treatment.
11. Reducing corporal punishment. Corporal punishment (physical attacks) by parents to their children was a serious problem for 81 percent of our enrollees when we first surveyed them in 2019. By the summer of 2023, only 11 percent of our enrolled parents reported resorting to corporal punishment to address their children's behavioral problems. Enrollees reported applying our conflict resolution, de-escalation, and positive, strengths-centered accountability measures to uplift their children when they make mistakes.
12. Elevating mental health. By the end of 2023, we had helped 74 community members enter longterm Psychiatric Rehabilitation Programs. We help them use or seek counseling, mindfulness, and Social and Emotional Learning in tandem with medical interventions (like medication) to find inner peace.
13. Reducing stress and anxiety. Each year, approximately 82 percent and holding of enrollees consistently report reductions in stress and anxiety in their lives as a result of the equitable, non-judgmental, caring healing circles that we facilitate. This reduction in stress and anxiety allows community members to better maintain employment, become job-ready, improve their relationships, and maintain their mental and physical health. All of these hallmarks are key to violence prevention.
14. Uplifting leadership capacities. By 2022, 80 percent of our enrollees praised their own leadership capacities, consistently noting the effectiveness of their ability to move their family members and peers to work through conflicts peacefully and de-escalate in challenging situations.
15. Cultivating improved senses of self. So much of community education and community healing involves helping people to feel good about themselves as whole, productive people. By 2022, 76 percent of our enrollees reported a more accepting and affirming sense of their gendered and racial personhood with many community members sharing that they have healthier visions and understandings of their womanhood, manhood, and/or LGBTQ+ identities.
16. Coping with poverty. Poverty remains the most significant barrier to peaceful living for our enrollees, and ongoing governmental policies that dis-enfranchise them continue to exacerbate our efforts. Yet, each year, 70 percent of our enrollees report that our wrap-around services (like limited rental assistance, transportation, phone-replacement, support with administrative forms, and help with replacement of broken or outmoded household appliances) have helped them mitigate some of the effects of poverty as they prevent violence in their lives.
17. Coping with bias. Racism (and other forms of bias) are consistent barriers to peace and wellness for Black and Brown youth and adults in the United States. Within interactions with police or with officials in agencies, government, institutions, and schools, community members frequently report bias. Each year, 90 percent of our community members report that our work has helped them de-escalate in the face of bias to protect their mental and physical health.
18. Improved scholastic achievement. Each year, 83 percent of our youth enrollees report that our emphasis on de-escalation, mindfulness (calm and focused awareness), and conflict resolution has improved their grades in school. They also report increased ability to cope with and/or avoid toxic conflicts and aggression from their peers in school.
19. Improved foodways. Research (some of which is compiled at this web-page) shows that a nutrient-rich, fresh healthy diet helps to prevent aggressive and violent behavior. Each year, over 90 percent of community members praise our Foodways Initiative, citing the ways that it makes them feel less agitated and aggressive while teaching them about the vital role that nutrition plays in their wellness. We serve one healthy, fresh, nutrient rich meal at every healing circle, learning session, and community gathering. These meals include low sodium and sugar with an emphasis on lean proteins, vegetables, fruit, and water (with the occasional fun snacks) according to Michelle Obama's MyPlate initiative. Community members report that our Foodways Initiative also helps them mitigate food insecurity borne of poverty and the lack of a grocery store in the neighborhood (a barrier that advocates call "food deserts") within walking distance or accessible by a bus ride that takes a half an hour or less.
20. Enhanced disease prevention. Disease prevention goes hand-in-hand with violence prevention. Within our networks, we have led the way in encouraging community members to vaccinate against diseases (including COVID-19), while masking, hand-washing, sanitizing, and protecting themselves from STIs through safe sex materials like condoms and dental dams. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, we began providing free KN95 and N95 masks and nitrile gloves, and we still provide these items today. We were one of the earliest community organizations devoted to these health practices in the city. From 2020 to 2023 we also provided free FDA-approved COVID-19 self-tests. Overwhelmingly, community members praise these efforts for their role in eliminating barriers as they uplift their capacities for disease prevention.