These are the agencies that have a COMBAT-funded program with a teen-dating violence emphasis or component.

Blue Springs COPS Program

BLUE SPRINGS POLICE DEPARTMENT PROGRAM -- The Community Outreach Prevention Strategies (COPS) program addresses children and families’ mental health needs, as well as crime and violence prevention and substance abuse prevention, with the focus on youth, family and the community. Counselors conduct assessments on all individuals to identify their needs, formulate a plan that is appropriate for the situation that COPS offer, including counseling, case management, mentoring and consulting. Counselors will meet with individuals at their location, schools, outreach locations or office. Officers and counselors lead decision making classes consisting of supportive parenting, racial-bias, healthy relationships, impulse control, personal safety, legal awareness, and drug and alcohol groups. Participants may be appropriately assigned a community services day, Girls on Fire program or the Life Sports program, which is conducted by Blue Springs Police Department’s officers and counselors.
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Bridge Anti-Bullying & Life Skills Program

BRIDGE LEADERSHIP ACADEMY PROGRAM -- The Bridge Youth Violence Prevention Program (The Bridge YVP) is designed to prevent and reduce factors that put youth at risk of witnessing a violent crime, being a victim of violence and/or making unhealthy choices. The program consists of a series of life skills and leadership development workshops designed to help students develop and employ healthy strategies when dealing with conflicts in everyday life. Workshops topics include communication strategies, goal setting, healthy relationships, positive self-talk, basic self-care and healthy coping mechanisms. The Bridge also provides on-site psychologists who facilitate counseling sessions to address trauma, anxiety and stress, empowering youth to develop behaviors that foster safe and healthy environments for themselves.
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DeLaSalle Violence Prevention

DELASALLE EDUCATION CENTER PROGRAM -- DeLaSalle’s Violence Prevention program is a multifaceted approach to Prevention, Intervention, and Restoration to best serve DeLaSalle’s students. DeLaSalle’s proactive approach to violence prevention includes offering on-site programming with support from Camp Fire Heartland and school-initiated strategies during school hours as well as after school hours—with off-site programming at organizations such as Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Kansas City and having staff or mentors dedicated to be available and/or respond immediately to situations at all times of the day, night, or weekends. Programs offered during the hours from school dismissal to the evening will provide positive interactions with other students and adults, as opposed to these hours often being the times students are most susceptible to negative influences in their lives. In addition, DeLaSalle will teach to the socio-emotional competencies that are life long and all day skills.
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Hickman Mills Hope Hangout

HICKMAN MILLS PREVENTION COALITION -- The project provides supportive services for students at high risk of violence or affected by violence between 12 – 20 years of age and their families who are from the Universal, Selected, and Indicated populations to the Hangout within Hickman Mills School District's Burke Academy. Students are reffered by the school district, KCPD South Patrol, Youth Court and Family Court. Due to Covid-19, the students are being assigned to Hope Hangout for virtual and physical support every day of the week (with the exception of Sunday) through the school year and four days a week during the summer. The hours Monday through Friday are 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and noon to 3:00 p.m. on most Saturdays. Hope Hangout offers academic support, mental health support, youth leadership development, parenting classes and mentoring, and a safe space to dwell daily in South Kansas City.
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Hope House's Targeted Domestic Violence Program

HOPE HOUSE, INC. PROGRAM -- Hope House's Targeted Domestic Violence Program addresses the identified need to bridge the current gap in services that has been recognized by the Independence STRIVIN' Committee. Project staff provide on-site advocacy and therapy services for residents of Hawthorne Place Apartments who are currently or have previously experienced domestic violence. As a result of being able to access services on-site, Hope House anticipates survivors will have the resources and support needed to keep themselves and their families safe, cope with the trauma they have experienced and remain in stable and secure housing.
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Project SAFE

ROSE BROOKS CENTER PROGRAM -- Project SAFE is Rose Brooks Center’s school-based violence prevention program for children in preschool through 12th grade in Jackson County. Project SAFE carries out Rose Brooks’ mission to end the cycle of domestic violence by reaching at-risk youth in grades pre-K through 12th before they make the life choices that can reproduce the cycle of violence. The program helps students develop resiliency tools and skills necessary to avoid future violence perpetration or victimization. Rose Brooks Center first offered school-based prevention in 1997 in response to schools’ requests to support children with domestic violence trauma. For over 40 years, Rose Brooks Center has provided shelter and supportive services to adults and children impacted by domestic violence. Annually, Rose Brooks Center impacts approximately 14,000 local individuals through professional education and shelter, its hotline, and non-residential advocacy, clinical and prevention services.
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Reducing Compound Trauma In Hot Spots

CENTERS FOR CONFLICT RESOLUTION PROGRAM -- This project brings trauma-informed conflict resolution processes and training and restorative justice practices to children, youth and adults in four COMBAT-identified hot spots. This project serves approximately 600 people in schools, neighborhoods, families and courts. CCR participants are identified as having caused harm or having been harmed. They live, work or go to school in high crime and high violence areas. They have experienced individual, historical, societal, cultural or secondary trauma. Conflict resolution training and processes are a needed aspect of the full-scale intervention COMBAT is creating, making a direct contribution to violence prevention efforts by successfully promoting the idea that conflicts can be resolved without violence. Since conflict can and sometimes does lead to violence, conflict resolution effectively reduces violence.
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Youth Ambassadors Summer & School Year Programming

YOUTH AMBASSADORS, INC. PROGRAM -- Youth Ambassadors hires youth (ages 14-18), many of whom have a history of multiple trauma exposures and are at risk for violence—either as victims or perpetrators—to participate in work assignments that resemble traditional classroom environments. The focus of Youth Ambassadors' violence prevention efforts include the provision of 21st Century life and job skills, mental health services, social-emotional learning, and exposure to equity and advocacy initiatives. Ambassadors participate in a learning community with intentional instruction from adults considered experts in their respective fields. Each week, Ambassadors receive assignments and exercises to increase their value-added market skills, personal responsibility, critical thinking and mental health. The youth are compensated for their participation. Because of this unique aspect, the youth receive financial literacy workshops to embed practical financial skills early on.
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