Initial_Problem_Statement_(RFI).PDF

USAID/Honduras Request for Information (RFI): Integrated Violence Prevention

USAID/Honduras seeks to gain further insight on challenges facing the identification and provision of both secondary and tertiary prevention services to at-risk youth and their families, and potential solutions in Honduras. The input may contribute to upcoming activity design(s).

INITIAL PROBLEM STATEMENT

Despite a relative decline in the rate of homicides, Honduras continues to have one of the highest murder rates in the world at 43.6 homicides per 100,000 people in 2017. Violent acts are primarily concentrated in low-income, urban areas and primarily perpetrated by young males against other young males. This correlation provides the basis for USAID/Honduras’ Development Objective I (“DO 1 “): “Citizen Security increased for vulnerable populations in urban, high-crime areas.”To address these challenges, USAID’s approach is comprehensive and holistic, with interventions on the primary, secondary and tertiary spectrum of violence prevention.

USAID activities work to identify at risk youth, and provide specific support services tailored to the need of the individual and their family, and importantly, within their communities. Activities include Outreach Centers, family-based counseling and support services, workforce development and job training opportunities, addressing violence in schools, small scale community infrastructure, and working with community committees and community policing. The earlier you can identify at risk youth and get them the support services they need, the easier it is to stop the progression of risk and, simultaneously, crime and violence that is endemic to youth in Honduras.

There are real challenges in identifying high risk youth, and further challenges faced in accessing these youth when and where they most need services. Because services may be needed during non-working hours, require confidentiality, and other circumstances, these violence prevention services must have a degree of community embedding or anchoring that is crucial to providing services to youth and their families. Youth and their families must be referred to the appropriate, linked services, that are integrated to provide a complete model for violence prevention. Strategic linkages must be made with local governments, civil society organizations, private sector, and donorrifunded activities to increase locally-led services for eligible youth and their families. Service provision must be gender specific, since men and women experience violence differently.

Through a new activity(ies), USAID/Honduras will seek to improve the provision of services to high risk populations, strengthen the referral systems already in place and strengthen organizations and institutions charged with this type of care and related services, including both state and non-state actors, BACKGROUND

Crime, violence, and homicide are at or near record highs in the northern triangle countries of Central America - Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. In the last decade multiple observers have ranked Honduras and El Salvador among the most violent countries in the world.1 To reverse this trend, USAID adapted both sociological and public health models of violence prevention in support of government and civil society efforts. USA ID/Honduras further adapted and advocated a public health model of violence reduction and prevention, first posited by the U.S. Surgeon General in 1979, and taken up by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control2. This model views violence in epidemiological terms, equivalent to communicable diseases, and seeks to interrupt violent behaviors through targeted interventions that reduce incidence and prevent further transmission. The public health violence prevention approach is predicated on having clearly defined target populations, disaggregated by nsk levels, and clearly identified risk and protective factors. IJSAID/Honduras has adapted a fourth component — community policing — to the three utraditional public health interventions against violence. This is an essential component to sustain the positive results of prevention and effectively confront crime and violence with the cooperation of the community.

Questions for Industry Feedback:

1. What type of proven interventions would be the most effective at providing violence prevention services for higher risk (secondary and tertiary) youth in communities facing gang-related violence?

2. What are some key strategies for identifying higher risk youth in communities?

4. What are the pros and cons of family-based interventions with higher risk youth?

5. What are the obstacles to and possible solutions for at-risk youth receiving integrated violence prevention services, specifically, those who are not yet in conflict with the law?

7. What are the opportunities for local, non-governmental organizations, the Government of Honduras, and others to provide integrated violence prevention services to higher risk youth in Honduras?

10. How would you rank (prioritize) the aspects that serve to impede the provision of integrated prevention services to youth and their families?

10. What are key interventions required for violence prevention services to higher risk youth and their families?

12. How can migration be integrated or the linkage of migration be addressed in prevention services?

13. How are higher risk violence prevention services experienced differently by males and females? Are there distinctions that should be made which are not currently?

14. How can USAID increase sustainabitity and increase local ownership of the existing violence prevention services for higher risk youth?

Honduras reached a high of 87 homicides/100,000 people in 2011. January.- September 2016 rate was 45/1000. (Observatorlo Nacional de Ia

Yiolencia, Universidad Nacional Autónorna de Honduras/IUDPAS

Dahlberg, et.al. The Hlstoiy of Violence as a Public Health Issue. (2009). American Medical Association. http://virtualmentoi.ama assn.org/2009/02/mhstl-0902.html