It’s been over seven years since the release of the Blueprint for Peace, a novel plan to help reduce violence in a city long plagued by it.

“If we don’t own this, if we don’t make this a part of our DNA, part of our fabric as a community, it’s not going to succeed,” then-Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said during a news conference to announce the plan. “But I believe we can do this.”

Years later, leaders have begun plans to update the Blueprint for Peace.

Blueprint for Peace 2.0

Reggie Moore led the facilitation of the original plan as the director of the City of Milwaukee’s Office of Violence Prevention, now known as the Office of Community Wellness and Safety.

“There’s a Blueprint 2.0 that’s going to be happening,” he said. “There’s a meeting coming up soon with our core partners.”

Those partners, Moore said, include the Medical College of Wisconsin, City of Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, Milwaukee Healthcare Partnership and the Milwaukee Justice Council. He said other groups and residents will be engaged in the process.

Moore, now the director of violence prevention policy and engagement at the Medical College of Wisconsin Comprehensive Injury Center, said the first step in creating a new plan will be to look at the progress of initiatives that resulted from the original Blueprint.

‘A whole new landscape’

As they look back at different metrics, including those from before and after the pandemic, organizers will be better informed on what strategies from the original Blueprint need to continue and what new priorities to add, Moore said.

Erin Perkins served on the steering committee during the creation of the first Blueprint. At the time, she was the coordinator of the City of Milwaukee’s Commission on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault.

She’s now a program manager for the Milwaukee Community Justice Council.

Perkins said it’s time for a new Blueprint, especially because of the societal changes that resulted from the COVID pandemic.

“I’m sure there are things that are true now just as they were before the pandemic, but really we’re looking at a whole new landscape,” she said. “Needs for residents have changed, and we have new leadership in the city and with that turnover comes new perspectives.”

Impact of Blueprint for Peace

Perkins said the original Blueprint helped to focus many of the Milwaukee Community Justice Council’s strategies related to reentry services for the formerly incarcerated and other public safety and quality-of -life issues.

As Moore reflected on the impact of the original Blueprint, he rattled off a number of  ongoing initiatives that were created, including the 414Life program.

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The 414Life program treats gun violence as a disease and is a partnership between the City of Milwaukee and Froedtert Hospital.  It engages community members as “violence interrupters” in neighborhoods across Milwaukee County.

Amber Brandolino, a doctoral student at the Medical College of Wisconsin, was the lead author of recently published research that examined the hospital-based violence response through 414Life.

She found that most of the individuals who received services from 414Life from 2019 to 2020, all gunshot victims, came from the priority neighborhoods identified in the Blueprint for Peace.

“The program was reaching those demographically at the highest risk for violence but also geographically at the highest risk for violence as informed by the Blueprint for Peace,” she said.

The community’s plan

Creating the original Blueprint was a one-year process that involved elected officials; representatives from sectors that included nonprofits, health care and business; various city and county departments; and  thousands of residents.

“It was designed to be the community’s plan and was informed and developed by the community,” Moore said.

David Muhammad , the deputy director of Milwaukee County’s Division of Health and Human Services, led community engagement efforts to create the Blueprint as a program manager for Office of Violence Prevention. 

He said although the plan was well-received, it’s difficult to measure its impact.

One thing he does know is that many current violence prevention efforts in the county align with strategies identified in the Blueprint for Peace, including services for mental health, substance abuse, domestic violence and street outreach.

“All crime is an outreach of unmet needs,” Muhammad said. “We’ve operationalized a lot of the things that were evidence-based that we know worked in times of crisis.”

Still, Muhammad said, not every goal in the Blueprint has been realized.

“We don’t write plans to put them on a shelf and not act,” he said, “When we give our word to the community, we have to deliver. I don’t know if people have engaged at that level.”

What’s next

Moore said the core group plans to meet in early March to begin plans for Blueprint for Peace 2.0.

“The world has changed,” Moore said. “It’s important that the Blueprint remains relevant and informed in real time by the needs and priorities of the leaders in the community, business and government that are here now.”

There’s no timeline yet on when a new plan could be released.