In 2010, MEE was selected by the Illinois Violence Prevention Authority (IVPA) to replicate two of its most successful community mobilization models as part of the Governor's Neighborhood Recovery Initiative (NRI), a comprehensive community effort to reduce youth violence and increase adult engagement and leadership in Chicago-area neighborhoods. MEE conducted two workshops for service providers in Chicago in December 2009 and August 2010, following the release of Moving Beyond Survival Mode: Promoting Mental Wellness and Resiliency as a Way to Cope with Urban Trauma. The report offered sobering insights into the daily realities of today's urban youth and revealed that mental and emotional issues impact behaviors in many areas, including substance abuse, interpersonal violence and sexual health. One of the key findings is that the top sources of stress were poverty and a lack of jobs. Through our work with NRI, we will be able to address those stressors, while we also support implementation of strategies that increase positive coping behaviors among our youth and surround them with protective factors that include a stronger safety net of community adults.

Starting in 2011 and over the next two years, MEE is training 23 community-based agencies in the Chicago area to implement our Mentoring-Plus-Jobs (M+J) and Parent Leadership in Action Network (PLAN) models. Other NRI project components include: school-based counseling; expanding Safety Networks, an existing youth-development program; and a re-entry program for ex-offenders.

NRI's work is based on feedback from the Governor's Anti-Violence Commission and focuses on rebuilding Illinois' most vulnerable neighborhoods and offering multiple strategies to protect young people and build their self-esteem and leadership capacity. MEE's willingness to share our models and our train-the-trainer approach will transfer our two decades of insights about creating awareness and influencing the behaviors of urban populations to help reduce the risk factors and promote the protective factors associated with violence.

Sharing what we know with agencies and community-based organizations in Chicago transfers important peer-to-peer education skills and job opportunities to residents of neighborhoods where they're needed most. The Mentoring-Plus-Jobs component—developed from evidence-based approaches that we have used successfully with at-risk populations across the country—will provide part-time jobs (doing community outreach) plus mentoring and social/emotional skills development and support for approximately 2,000 youth (ages 15-21) from Chicago-area neighborhoods with the highest rates of poverty, violent crime, domestic distress and youth disconnected from their schools or community. PLAN – the parents' component – will provide more than 1,000 adults with opportunities for leadership in the community and jobs as peer educators.