Community in Motion is an initiative that seeks to engage, train and support community members across Iowa in efforts to prevent gender-based violence and abuse, gun violence, bullying, and discrimination from occurring in neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and the broader community in which they live. Efforts will primarily be utilizing the bystander engagement framework/model. In order to fully realize the positive change this project envisions a significant number of community stakeholders will need to be engaged and supported.
The Patricia A Tomson Center for Violence Prevention (PATCVP) will provide significant resources for this initiative based on its unique position within the University of Northern Iowa and its history of working with communities across Iowa and the Midwest. The PATCVP has leveraged its position to establish strong relationships and partnerships with violence prevention experts, yielding field-tested, evidence-based prevention strategies and assessment tools.
What Defines a Community in Motion?
Solutions for Moving Forward
Anthony Cohen defines community as, “a system of norms, values and moral codes that provide a sense of identity for all its members.”
A “Community in Motion” is defined as: A steady and intentional movement of a majority of like-minded youth and adults, families, work and social groups and organized coalitions working together to challenge and confront social norms that support violence and discrimination by:
- Creating awareness of all types of violence and discrimination (social norming campaigns, community statistics)
- Supporting opportunities for open dialogue about the impact of violence and discrimination (empathy building, capacity building)
- Challenging thinking about stereotypes and social norms that support root causes of violence and discrimination
- Inspire leadership at all levels of the socio-ecological model (individual, family, community, societal) to reduce violence and discrimination
Most importantly, when a community falls short of providing a sense of safety and securing for all its members, rebuilding support and promoting positive change needs to occur.
Violence that occurs in a community is due to the erosion and break down of relationships and connections. The only remedy we have to reduce and end this violence is to institutionalize “relationship building” by increasing and improving our community’s social capital – a key factor in obtaining a sense of connectedness in a community. In order to accomplish this, we propose adopting the “Community in Motion” model.
Leveraging all community assets and strengths will help ensure that a broad and diversity group of stakeholders will take ownership in actively creating safer homes, schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods. Colleagues in the field of rural economic revitalization can inform us on “revitalizing our communities” to be safe and prosperous through a model known as, “spiraling up.” In other words, methodically and intentionally building support for a violent-free community from the ground up utilizing its social capital - internal and external resources to inspire leadership, hope and positive change.
While the majority of community members believe gun violence, discrimination, and gender-based violence are wrong, few individuals know what to do about it or see themselves as being responsible to act or speak out against it when it happens. This is true for youth and adults alike. Increasing knowledge and skill-building is a preventative approach needed in any community setting to engage its members as active bystanders for change. Leadership development is key and requires both individual leadership and responsibility, as well as transformative leadership within organizations and systems that make up a broader community.