St. Louis, Missouri – November 2019 – Better Family Life has been recognized by the White House for their innovative program to reduce gun violence in neighborhoods.

“This is our outreach team,” James Clark, Vice President of Community Outreach for Better Family Life said. “We deploy uniformed, trained, enlightened individuals who come from the neighborhood. We seek to recalibrate young people.”

It's one of the most important meetings of the day when Clark meets with his team in the morning to discuss what's going on and what needs to be done to help nurture local families in neighborhoods.

“We have got to address the needs of the families in our more challenged neighborhoods,” Clark said.

Better Family Life has been making a difference in north St. Louis since the 1980s. Their mission is to unite families to empower the community.

“We focus on what we call the N P L,” Clark said. “The neighborhood, the front porch, and the living room.”

Clark says we need each other to make this community a better place. And that is exactly what his outreach team does. Every day. They help families in the neighborhood.

“We deploy outreach workers into the neighborhoods and the outreach workers are able to identify families that are in need, individuals that are in need,” Clark said. “And then we direct resources straight to the individuals and straight to the families.”

Those resources include things like helping family members find jobs, housing, and drug rehab facilities.

“If an individual is ready to go into treatment, then we can dispatch a van and we can normally get them into inpatient treatment within 48 hours,” Clark said.

Better Family Life’s gun violence de-escalation program received national attention from the president and has been replicated in other cities.

“And it became clear that third party people who know about a conflict or willing to come in, sit down and work to have the conflict deescalated,” Clark said. “So it won't solve every shooting, but it has prevented 95 shootings that we have documented.”

Clark has a staff of 17, but says, he's working to get that number up. And with the help of some recent grants, he's on his way.

“As we bring that model to scale, we will be able to move the needle in a positive direction,” Clark said. “And in a relatively short period of time.”

“I wish I could multiply their work across the city,” St. Louis City Police Chief John Hayden said. “They are certainly doing a wonderful work in the communities that it has reached.”

Clark says he sees peaceful, loving people every day. And with the right help, his team can bring out a positive spirit and help get loving energy to flow where it's needed.  Learn more about Better Family Life at https://www.betterfamilylife.org/