Illinois Center for Violence Prevention

ICVP launched its YouthPeace^® program in 1995 in response to the need to include youth as partners at the local and state level in addressing youth violence. The young people that have participated in this program and its gender-specific component, SisterNet^® have been leaders for their peers and adults in raising awareness, fostering collaborations, and increasing the leadership role of youth in ending violence. We are proud of the successes they have achieved, along with their sponsoring organizations and adult leaders.

Effective March 31 2006, ICVP will no longer implement its YouthPeace and SisterNet programs. ICVP remains fully committed to youth leadership and ending youth violence, however we have decided to refocus our youth violence prevention efforts. Our current strategic planning process will help shape our next steps in youth violence prevention. As these plans are more fully developed, we will post our strategies on our web site.

ICVP will continue administering the Youth Advisory Board in collaboration with the Illinois Violence Prevention Authority.

We encourage organizations providing youth violence prevention services to take advantage of the ongoing resources ICVP offers. We will continue providing trainings in youth violence prevention through our Training & Coaching Institute, including our 2006 October bullying prevention conference in Springfield. We will also continue our advocacy for after-school programs as a violence prevention strategy through our Illinois After-school Alliance, and invite you to join the Alliance in reaching out to legislators. We appreciate the commitment and partnership of so many youth, organizations, and systems to ending youth violence during ICVP’s nearly fifteen years of advancing Illinois’ violence prevention movement.

Youth like DeVone Eurales, past president of Cairo YouthPeace Chapter, have helped create positive options for young people for more than a decade.

Our Principles

ICVP believes in a core set of principles and values that guide our strategic planning and implementation of youth programs. These include:

Youth want to be part of the solution to end community violence.
Youth contribute numerous and valuable resources to community peacemaking and violence prevention efforts.
Youth play vital roles in their communities.
Youth benefit from structured opportunities and support for their participation in peacemaking and violence prevention activities.
Youth need to understand the risk factors for violence perpetration and victimization and effective strategies for countering those risks.
Youth inspire each other to become involved.
Youth want opportunities to learn and practice peacemaking.

For general information and questions about ICVP’s future youth initiatives programming, please e-mail ICVP's Executive Director.