Penn researchers and community partners are working to reframe violence prevention as a public health initiative, emphasizing connection and support for youth.
A July 7 mass shooting in Philadelphia’s Grays Ferry neighborhood left three dead and 10 injured at a block party on S. Etting Street, becoming one of the worst incidents in a summer marked by increasing gun violence. In light of the shooting, Sara Solomon — deputy director of the Penn Injury Science Center — emphasized the importance of “spreading kindness and love as a strategy” to help curb instances of violence in an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian.
Solomon is on the board of the Young Chances Foundation, an organization that works to “spread guidance every day” through youth camps and community programs in Grays Ferry. She explained that the community violence prevention outreach workers hope to mitigate youth hostility by “just giving a child a hug, which they might not get.”
She said that the Grays Ferry tragedy “really hit home” for her because she knows “all of the kids that go to the summer camp there and the families, and the shooting was just right around the corner.”
“The violence had gone down in those communities, I think, largely because of the work of the Young Chances Foundation,” Solomon said. “We are spreading love and kindness to individuals and communities who haven't always received that. So, yeah, I do think that’s important in terms of violence prevention.”
Solomon is also program director of the Penn Community Violence Prevention Program, housed within the Penn Injury Science Center, which focuses on “primary prevention” — stopping violence before it begins — by working with individuals aged 13 to 35 identified as “high-risk.”
“We work one-on-one with individuals at the highest risk of gun violence,” Solomon said. “If you can develop systems to identify those individuals, then you're more likely to stop the spread — so it treats it like a contagious disease.”
Outreach workers connect participants to jobs, housing, therapy, and education. Eligibility is based on factors including prior violence, incarceration, or family history.
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Assistant professor of surgery in traumatology Elinore Kaufman serves as the medical director for the Trauma Recovery Program within the Injury Science Center, which provides “wraparound services to support” gunshot survivors and “connect them to the services that they need to make as full a recovery as possible.”
In a statement to the DP, Kaufman emphasized the “profound effects” that the “firearm injury epidemic” may have “on survivors—the injured person, their family, friends, and community.”
“I’m really glad that the city and so many of our partners have stepped up to support the families affected by the July 7 shooting, and that we can contribute as well,” Kaufman continued.
Similarly to Solomon, Kaufman also noted how gun violence is “concentrated in communities that are already structurally disadvantaged,” and that “patients are already facing adversity before they come in and the experience of injury only makes things more challenging.”
This fall, Penn will launch a middle school violence prevention initiative funded by the Department of Justice that links Bartram High School and nearby Cedar Avenue schools, aiming to reach youth earlier.
While Penn has long been a research hub for injury prevention, Solomon said the University’s role in communities like Grays Ferry extends beyond scholarship.
“Communities that are co-located with large academic institutions have a history of disinvestment, injustice, and irresponsible research activities,” Solomon said.
She added that the research conducted “in partnership with communities ... not only builds trust in these co-located communities that have historically [had] trust broken, but also ultimately improves research and improves health outcomes.”
