UTICA, N.Y. — Integrated Community Alternatives Network (ICAN) recently received $500,000 in state funding to establish a SNUG Street Outreach Program to reduce gun violence in Utica. The program uses a public-health approach by identifying the source, interrupting transmission, and treating it by providing services and resources and changing community norms around gun violence. “SNUG […]
UTICA, N.Y. — Integrated Community Alternatives Network (ICAN) recently received $500,000 in state funding to establish a SNUG Street Outreach Program to reduce gun violence in Utica.
The program uses a public-health approach by identifying the source, interrupting transmission, and treating it by providing services and resources and changing community norms around gun violence.
“SNUG will compliment ICAN’s longstanding youth-focused programs, our overarching wraparound philosophy, and our street outreach program. We are ready to work productively and proactively within our neighborhoods on the reduction of gun violence,” ICAN Executive Director/CEO Steven Bulger said in a release.
Funding recipients receive comprehensive training, site visits, and support from the state’s Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS). New staff will complete 40 hours of training and new supervisors will receive 32 hours of management training. All staff must finish 40 hours of professional-development training annually. This ensures the program operates consistently across all SNUG sites.
SNUG programs employ street-outreach workers, hospital responders, social workers, and case managers who work in the community and trauma centers to leverage their community ties to work with teens and young adults to detect and defuse disputes before they escalate. The also respond to shootings to prevent retaliation by using mediation and assist family members of those who have been injured or killed and mentor youth involved with the program to set goals and connect with educational and job opportunities. The programs also engage the community, religious organizations and clergy, and local businesses through rallies, special events, and other community gatherings.
Utica joins Albany, the Bronx, Buffalo, Hempstead, Mt. Vernon, Newburgh, Niagara Falls, Poughkeepsie, Syracuse, Rochester, Troy, Wyandanch, and Yonkers in the SNUG network.
ICAN is a nonprofit organization headquartered at 310 Main St. in Utica.