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New city office outlines plan to coordinate community violence-intervention ecosystem
Summary
The city's Community Violence Intervention manager described efforts to map service providers, standardize outcomes and build capacity for targeted prevention and family-based services; staff said they plan new liaison hires and data-driven evaluation to show impact.
Sunithia White, Community Violence Prevention Manager, told council on April 8 that her office is coordinating Newport News’ community violence-intervention (CVI) ecosystem to connect direct-service organizations, improve service referrals and measure outcomes.
“For those who are not aware of what the CVI ecosystem is, it's essentially connecting those who have the closest relationships to those who are or present the greatest risk of being impacted by violence,” White said. She described the office’s work mapping stakeholders, holding community conversations and identifying where the system can be strengthened and streamlined.
White said the city's approach emphasizes targeted prevention and intervention where individuals and groups are at highest risk, and building organizational capacity so providers can document both quantitative and qualitative outcomes. “At the end of the day, we want to say, Is anyone any better off?” she said.
She described near-term staffing plans that include hiring a services liaison to work directly with organizations to coordinate service delivery and a family services specialist to expand household-level interventions. White said she has held “probably over 35 or 40 meetings” with organizations and stakeholders since taking the role and that the office will use national best practices and external partners to develop metrics and evaluation standards.
Council members asked whether existing programs — including the city’s gun-violence intervention program, hospital-based violence-intervention efforts and mental-health services — will be integrated. White said those programs are part of the ecosystem and that the CVI office will work to streamline referrals and reduce redundancy so resources are used efficiently.
White said the office will pay particular attention to federal funding dependencies for intervention organizations and will monitor grant changes so the city can respond if partner capacity changes.
No council action was taken at the work session; White’s presentation was informational for FY2026 budget planning and program coordination.
