Begun Center Receives Nearly $5M in Violence Prevention Funding

In the past 90 days, the Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education has received notice of 23 individual new or continued streams of funding - totaling nearly $5 million! These grants represent the relationships the Begun Center has created over the past 20 years and the reputation they have built - a true testament to the trust placed in our researchers to provide solutions for a safer and healthier tomorrow.

1. Innovations in Reentry - $150,000 over 3 years: With funding from Bureau of Justice Assistance and in partnership with Towards Employment, Community Assessment & Treatment Services, Inc., and Oriana House, Inc., David L. Hussey and team will evaluate the Adult Transition Model's capacity to reduce recidivism, alleviate homelessness, and create safer neighborhoods.
2. Recovery Project III - $400,000 over 3 years: Margaret Baughman will conduct a 5-year evaluation of 200 adults in Cleveland Municipal Courts specialty dockets (drugs, human trafficking, mental health, veterans) with substance use disorder to assess community-based treatment services.
3. Project ECHO - $55,000: The Center for Innovative Practices, led by Richard Shepler will work with Northeast Ohio Medical University & Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services to pilot a knowledge-sharing network that brings specialists together to share expertise via the web. Topical focus is youth w/ serious behavioral health & developmental challenges.
4. MyCOM - $175,194: With funding from the Cleveland Foundation, Daniel J. Flannery and Rodney Thomas will continue to provide technical assistance & evaluation services to MyCOM: My Commitment, My Community youth development to document neighborhood engagement, improve programming, and demonstrate impact.
5. Healthy Transitions - $520,000 over 5 years: Chris Stormann and his team will use a SAMHSA system of care award to provide evaluation services for Ohio Department of Mental Health & Addiction Services and Wingspan Care Group / Bellefaire JCB / Applewood Centers, Inc. as they support transition age youth with mental health and other illnesses/disabilities in Cuyahoga and Lorain counties.
6. Veteran Reentry Treatment Court - $400,000 over 5 years: Margaret Baughman will conduct a five-year longitudinal evaluation of 375 veterans with substance use disorder (some co-occurring with mental illness) to assess community-based treatment services. This project is in collaboration with the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas.
7. Mental Health Awareness Training Services for Ohio Guardsmen/Women - $31,500 over 3 years: Jane Timmons-Mitchell will provide evaluation services for the expansion of mental health first aid training to Ohio National Guard members, particularly in recognizing/referring suicidal thoughts and behaviors. This project is SAMHSA funded via the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation.
8. Advancing Cuyahoga County's Approach to Unsubmitted SAKs - $315,714 over 3 years: Rachel Lovell and Daniel J. Flannery will continue to conduct research & evaluation for Cuyahoga County's Sexual Assault Kit Task Force to deepen and improve our understanding of sexual assault and disseminate findings. Funded by Bureau of Justice Assistance Sexual Assault Kit Initiative with Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office.
9. Ohio Opioid Analytics Project - $45,728: Margaret Baughman and Krystel Tossone will develop geospatial analysis and predictive models for opioid treatment engagement and retention to enable better distribution of resources and develop models for clinicians. This project is in collaboration with the Ohio Colleges of Medicine Government Resource Center.
10. Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Site-Based Program - $577,301 over 3 years: Daniel J. Flannery will lead the development of a platform to inform opioid evidence-based practices and policy-making and monitor community trends and outcomes. This project is funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance via ADAMHS Board of Cuyahoga County, in collaboration with Cuyahoga County Opiate Task Force, Ohio HIDTA, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office, The MetroHealth System, Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office, Cleveland EMS, BioEnterprise Corporation, Accenture and many more.
11. Freedman Fellows Project - $7,450: Misty Luminais and Rachel Lovell will use Risk Terrain Modeling to examine factors that increase risk of sexual assault – to see how built environment can affect crime rates in particular areas. This project is funded by the Kelvin Smith Library Freedman Center for Digital Scholarship.
12. Recovery Project II - $75,000 over 3 years: Margaret Baughman, funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, will conduct an evaluation of 75 adults in specialty dockets with substance use disorder to assess community-based treatment services.
13. Targeted Reclaim - $144,000: Jeff Kretschmar and Fred Butcher will lead a project with Ohio Department of Youth Services; the research team will work with 10 juvenile courts across Ohio to determine the effectiveness and impact of their local juvenile justice diversion efforts.
14. Research and Evaluation on Violence Against Women - $714,999 over 3 years: Rachel Lovell and Daniel J. Flannery will use sentiment analysis through text mining, machine learning methods, and advanced statistical analyses to evaluate the narratives of over 6300 Cleveland Police reports of sexual assault to identify “signaling.” Signaling is information conveyed by responding officers in the narratives of police reports regarding a victim’s credibility & rape-myth adherence that may affect subsequent decision-making, case-flow, & attrition. This project is National Institute of Justice-funded.
15. Community-Based Intervention Training and Technical Assistance - $431,370 over 5 years: Richard Shepler and the Center for Innovative Practices team will provide training, technical assistance, and fidelity reviews for Community-Based Intervention in Ohio with support from DC Department of Behavioral Health.
16. Partnership for Evaluation, Research, and Implementation - $40,000: Funding from the Saint Luke's Foundation will allow the PERI team (Jeff Kretschmar, Ashley M. Bukach, Rebecca A. Bray) to continue to provide reduced-cost, high-quality evaluation and consultation services through local nonprofits. Read more about PERI's work.
17. Stark County High Fidelity Wraparound - $28,800: Jane Timmons-Mitchell will provide evaluation of the fidelity of the delivery of Wraparound services in Stark County, linking with outcomes of interest to the Ohio Department of Youth Services. This project is in collaborating with Stark County Mental Health & Addiction Recovery.
18. Innovations in Community-Based Crime Reduction - $244,000 over 3 years: Mark Singer will lead a Bureau of Justice Assistance-funded project that seeks to provide residents of Cleveland's Central neighborhood with needed services, emphasizing City of Cleveland Division of Police acting as first social responders for services to high-risk youths. 
19. Evaluation of the Forward Focus Initiative - $10,000: Rachel Lovell will be conducting an evaluation of Forward Focus, which provides housing and financial literacy and assistance to families, part of JFSA Cleveland.
20. Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Trauma and Violence Prevention - $150,000 over 2 years: The Begun Center, with funding and support from the Begun Foundation, seeks a post-doctoral fellow in trauma and violence prevention.
21. Reducing Health Disparities for Transgender Individuals - $49,992: Misty Luminais will lead a project studying barriers faced by transgender individuals in accessing healthcare, in partnership with LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland and funded by National Institutes of Health through the MetroHealth System's Center for Reducing Health Disparities. 
22. Juvenile Drug Court Evaluation - $75,000 over 4 years: Jeff Kretschmar will be leading a new project with Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court; funding from USDOJ Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention will allow Begun Center to provide consultation and evaluation services to Cuyahoga County's Juvenile Drug Court to align court practices to national standards.
23. Early Diversion Project Evaluation - $330,000 over 5 years: David L. Hussey will be leading a new SAMHSA-funded project in collaboration with ADAMHS Board of Cuyahoga County, Cleveland Police, and FrontLine Service to link individuals with severe mental illness in crisis with behavioral health services, diverting them from jail and reducing criminal sanctions.