FORSYTH COUNTY, N.C. — Violent crime is on the rise throughout Forsyth County, not just at schools. Now leaders are turning to a group called Cure Violence.
The program Cure Violence works to reduces violence by using disease control and behavior changing methods. This same organization came to Greensboro in 2019 and the program manager said she believes it has helped.
"This is not the end all be all to stopping violence, but I think it's a starting point to help our community," Ingram Bell said.
Bell works with Cure Violence in Greensboro and is passionate about making the area safer for everyone.
"Cure Violence helps those that are part of the problem, once was part of the problem and changed their lives," Bell said. "We have outreach workers that work on our team that help them find jobs, if they want to go to school, we help them get into school, we help with college job applications, go to court with them."
Bell said she is encouraged that Winston-Salem and Forsyth County are looking into the program too.
"We're here to help, Durham helped us when Greensboro was looking into the program," Bell said. "Durham came up and talked to us, so it's a family."
Shontell Robinson, the deputy county manager for Forsyth County, and Patrice Toney the assistant city manager for Winston-Salem said this is a joint effort.
"This is a community issue not a city vs. county issue," Robinson said.
Robinson said they have been working on this initiative for a few months.
"There is no secret that there has been a significant increase in our community, so we all got together to try and figure out what are some different things we can possibly do because what we currently are doing is not working, and so we would like to see a decrease in crime in our community," Robinson said.
As this program begins, a big part of it will be the community.
"What we love about the model is they come into the community and train the people, and it's not taking outside people and coming in and saying this is what needs to happen," Toney said. "They will then train people who live in certain neighborhoods and areas on the ground who understand our community at a closer level."
An assessment meeting is scheduled with Cure Violence on October 4. That's when leaders will discuss what needs the community has and address the next steps. The county funded the assessment, which cost about $10,000.