DEBORAH GORMAN-SMITH:
Welcome to everyone.
Thank you for being here
this afternoon for this panel
discussion.
For those of you I have not
met, I'm Deborah Gorman-Smith.
I'm the Dean of the University
of Chicago's School of Social
Service Administration
or SSA, as we
say because School of Social
Service Administration
is a bit of a mouthful.
I'm also the director
of the Chicago Center
for Youth Violence Prevention.
I've spent the last
20 years of my career
first studying the
impact of exposure
to violence on children
and youth outcomes.
And then at some
point I thought,
this was crazy that I'm just
studying the impact of exposure
to violence.
And I should start thinking
about moving upstream and how
we might think about
preventing violence, including
gun violence.
And so at times when I'm
feeling hopeless about the state
of our city, or around the
country, and gun violence.
I remember that 25
years ago, when I first
started doing this
work, that there was not
a field of violence prevention.
I started doing this
work at a time when
the only response was
the criminal justice
response to violence.
And we've learned a lot
over the last 20 years
that can then feel like
we haven't learned much.
So despite the enormous
public health crisis,
and that is the problem
of gun violence,
we know that
prevention is possible.
We have a growing list of
evidence based programs
that have been shown to work.
We use science and research.
We try to use science and
research to guide our work.
And the presentations today
are about using research
to understand the nature
of gun violence, the root
causes of gun violence, and to
use that data to better target
resources to guide
decision making
around programs and policies.
There are no simple solutions.
There's no one way forward.
Addressing this problem requires
a comprehensive and coordinated
approach with programs
focused at all scales--
from programs focused on
individuals at greatest risk
to economic and business
investment in our community,
to policies around gun
access and gun safety.
Our panelists today will
open the conversation
around many of those
different systems,
talk about places to
intervene, supports
that are needed, particularly
within the most marginalized
communities in our city.
So I'll briefly introduce
all four panelists.
They will each speak for
about eight to ten minutes,
and then we hope to open
up for audience discussion.
So first is the
Elaine Allensworth.
She is the
Lewis-Sebring Director
of the U Chicago Consortium.
She works with policymakers
and practitioners
to bridge research and
practice, providing advice
to researchers across the
country about conducting
research practice partnerships,
and serving on panels policy
commissions and working
groups at the local, state,
and national level.
Dr. Allensworth is an authority
in the areas of students'
educational attainment,
school leadership,
and school improvement.
Franklin Cosey-Gay is
the Executive Director
of the Chicago Center for Youth
Violence Prevention, housed
again at SSA.
We are one of five academic
centers for excellence
in youth violence prevention
funded by the Centers
for Disease Control
and Prevention.
Dr. Cozy Cosey-Gay
has more than 20 years
of experience identifying the
nature and causes of violence,
testing and implementing
violence prevention programs,
and partnering with
community stakeholders
to support a comprehensive
and coordinated response
to the root causes of violence.
Harold Pollack, also at SSA,
the Helen Ross Professor,
is also an affiliate professor
of the Biological Sciences
Collegiate Division
and the Department
of Public Health Sciences.
He's the co-founder of the
University of Chicago Crime Lab
and the co-director of the
University of Chicago Health
Lab.
His articles have appeared in
the Washington Post, New York
Times, Vox, and the Atlantic
Monthly, among others.
He's led research,
written, and spoken widely
on the issues of
violence, gun sales,
and the fundamental issues
underlying violent crimes.
And finally, Kim Smith
is the Associate Director
of Criminal Justice Initiatives
at U Chicago's Urban Labs.
She oversees the
Crime Lab's portfolio
of law enforcement and
crime justice work,
in addition to shaping the
Crime Lab's strategic plan.
Before joining
the Urban Lab, she
was senior research associate at
Innovations for Poverty Action
in New Haven, Connecticut.
So with that, a welcome
to our panelists.
[APPLAUSE]
Once again try and
to get the energy up.
And I will turn
things over to Elaine.
ELAINE ALLENSWORTH: So I'm
at the University of Chicago
Consortium on School Research.
And we've been doing research
for the past 30 years
that's specifically aimed at
helping the Chicago Public
Schools.
So we've gotten to know
the schools very well
over all of these years and
seen many different policies
come and go.
People often talk about
school improvement
in terms of getting the
right policy in place--
think, OK if we just
get the right policy,
or bring in the right program,
get the right curriculum,
have the right tests, the right
new graduation requirements--
that's what's going
to improve schools.
And one thing we've seen over
and over and over again is
that what matters most
for school improvement
is the way the
school is organized
in terms of the nature
of collaboration
within the school.
So schools that are
strong organizations where
people work together well.
They can take new policies,
new programs, new curriculum,
and they can use them well.
For schools that are
not organized well,
that don't have those strong
collaborative relationships,
any new policy
program, curriculum,
is just another thing that
adds more chaos and more stress
to the school, and often
ends up making things worse.
Schools ultimately are places
where adults collaborate
to educate children.
And trust is an
essential component
of making sure schools work
and helping schools to improve.
Crime and violence in the
communities where students live
undermine all of
those relationships.
And now I'm going to talk
about how that happens
and what that means in terms
of what we see in schools.
And I feel like we need
to do that because we have
to recognize and acknowledge
what violence in communities
does to schools.
If we don't, then the
status quo is just
going to keep on happening.
Right?
At the same time,
I want to start out
saying that this
is not inevitable.
There are strong schools in
all types of communities.
And there are
children that thrive
despite experiencing very,
very difficult circumstances.
What is typical occurs
because our systems
are set up to produce
these outcomes--
these inequitable outcomes.
Those patterns can be
changed if we understand them
and if we have the right
resources to address them.
So a number of years
ago, we did a study
where we looked at
schools that improved
over a period of six years.
We wanted to know what
it was that mattered
through school improvement.
So we looked at schools
that improved considerably.
And then we also
looked at schools
that showed no improvement and
even when their achievement
became worse over time.
And we looked at many
factors inside of schools.
Trust and collaboration came out
as the most important factors.
Well, we also looked at
factors outside of schools.
And, by far, the factor that
was most predictive of which
schools improved and
which schools did not
was crime in the
communities where
students' lived-- in the
residential communities
of students.
We ended up thinking
about community crime
as anti-social capital
because it erodes trust
in relationships
in different ways.
And what we found
is that schools that
were serving students
coming from neighborhoods
with high crime rates,
they had to have
exceptionally strong
internal collaboration
to be able to improve.
But at the same time, schools
that were serving students
from neighborhoods
with the most crime
were the least likely to
have strong collaborative
relationships.
And then we see
these patterns today.
You can see there are
very strong relationships
between the crime in
the neighborhoods that
students come from and pretty
much any measure of achievement
that's out there, and also with
the degree to which students
and teachers feel
safe in their schools.
And that's physical safety
and emotional safety.
One thing that people
often don't realize
is that emotion is a
key part of learning.
There is no learning
that happens
without an emotional component.
Right?
And so when students don't feel
safe, it's very hard for them
to engage in learning.
Over the years,
researchers have learned
a lot about what trauma
and chronic stress
can do to the brain, how it
affects the way that we think.
And it does so in ways that
really undermine students'
ability to engage in school.
It can lead to
depression, anxiety,
difficulty focusing, lack of
trust of others, suspicion,
heightened sensitivity--
Think about it from a
teacher's point of view.
If you're seeing these
things in a classroom--
If you're seeing a student
withdraw or act out,
and you don't know
what's happening,
you're going to make all
kinds of assumptions--
that the student doesn't
care, that the student is
actively defiant.
And so that erodes
relationships between students
and between teachers.
It also means it's more
likely to have conflict
amongst students
as they're dealing
with all kinds of
stress and anxiety.
And that means they're more
likely to get in trouble,
more likely to get suspended.
And then suspensions,
where students
are taken out of school,
they further erode trust.
Because when you take
students out of school,
you're making them fall
farther behind in school.
And so here you have educators--
students think educators are
there to help them succeed.
And now educators are
saying no, you can't come.
So it erodes trust and it makes
school even more frustrating
because they're further behind.
And six years ago,
in Chicago, there
were quite a number of schools
where a quarter or more
of students were being
suspended in a year.
Imagine that.
And those are schools
that were serving students
from neighborhoods with
the highest crime rates.
Teachers also can
experience secondary trauma
as they're seeing students
go through horrific events--
family members being killed,
seeing things on the streets,
just being afraid
hearing stories.
As teachers are
supporting students,
they themselves can start to
become depressed and anxious.
And then it makes
it harder for them
to be there for their students.
And then it makes
it harder for them
to engage with other teachers
and with family members who
also might be experiencing
trauma and chronic stress.
So you're eroding relationships
throughout the school
community.
And then as families see that
the school is struggling,
and there are problems
of safety in the school,
they'll look to put their
students in other schools.
But that means then
that sometimes students
have to travel further distances
to get to school, which also
can be a barrier to safety.
There are risks there.
And it means that schools then
don't have a stable population
of students.
It means you have a higher
student mobility rates, which
makes it harder to have
continuity in programs,
and harder to build those
relationships between students
and school staff.
And teachers, as they're getting
overwhelmed and frustrated--
they're more likely
to leave schools
that serve students from
neighborhoods with high crime
rates.
And again, higher
teacher mobility
means it's harder to have
continuity in programs
and training and
harder to establish
strong relationships over time.
There are just a number of ways
that crime in the community
undermines
relationships and trust
in schools in ways that are
really devastating for schools'
ability to improve
over time and to be
safe in nurturing and
supportive environments
where students can
really learn and thrive.
I say all that.
It's very depressing, but I
want you to remember that I also
said this is not inevitable.
So I have colleagues who right
now-- they're doing a study.
And they're looking at what
happens to student attendance
when there is a homicide in
their immediate neighborhood.
And they find, as other
people have found,
that attendance declines.
Students who live right
around where homicide occurs
are less likely to go to
school right after a homicide.
But they don't find
that pattern if students
are attending schools
where students
feel safe and supported.
So those schools where
students report the strongest
relationships with teachers this
the highest degree of safety--
They actually are more
likely to go to school
after a homicide occurs
in their neighborhood.
When we look across
schools, yes there's
a strong relationship
between school safety
and school achievement and crime
in students' neighborhoods.
But we see that schools
serving students
from the same neighborhoods,
with the same crime rates,
actually have very
different outcomes.
There are schools out there
who have figured out strategies
to counter what would
normally happen.
My colleagues right there, David
[? Orta ?] and David Johnson,
are actually right
now out in schools
trying to learn
from these schools
so that they can share what
these school practitioners have
learned.
Researchers actually show that
people are very resilient.
But what makes them
resilient is actually
having trusting,
supporting relationships.
That's what actually
makes a difference.
And there is expertise
in how to do this.
There's increasing
expertise in how to do this.
I think some of my
panelists are going
to talk about how to
do this pretty soon.
And we can there are
policies that have
made big impacts in schools.
Chicago Public
Schools, for example,
they instituted new policies
so that schools couldn't
suspend students as
much, and put resources
into social emotional
learning, restorative justice--
And we saw suspension
rates go way down.
Well, school safety went up.
And school achievement went up.
So you can do it.
There is another body of
work around trauma informed
instruction.
There's a body of work around
better designing classes
and schools to think about
students holistically
so that all students in
different kinds of contexts
have a better chance to succeed.
The key thing is--
we need to figure out what
it is that really matters.
Get that evidence.
And what are the
resources then that
are needed so that
all schools have
the structures and the
supports that everybody needs.
The more that there is
gun violence out there,
the more that factors like gun
violence are eroding trust,
the more we need
intentional structures
to build relationships.
DEBORAH GORMAN-SMITH: Thank you.
I think we're going to continue
to move on and save questions
for the end so that we can
have a robust conversation.
I think they're going to
turn this over to Franklin.
First we see once again that
there are clearly challenges.
But if we use
research, we use data
to try to understand what
makes a difference in helping
to support children,
that we really
can have a different kind
of impact and outcome.
Franklin?
FRANKLIN COSEY-GAY: So I'm going
to stand up just to mix it up.
Also I'm a qualitative
ethnography about training,
and I read a lot
of body language.
So I need to say, good
afternoon, everybody.
How are you doing?
All right.
So again, my name is
Franklin Cosey-Gay,
and I work at the Chicago Center
for Youth Violence Prevention.
And today, what I really
want to talk about
is one of the three
pillars that we focus on
and that is community
partnership.
As Dean Deborah Gordon-Smith,
the Director of the--
the principal
investigator at the Center
explained part of what
we do is understand
the nature and the
causes of violence,
particularly using
a public health
approach to look at risk
and protective factors
towards those youth outcomes.
But I've had the privilege
to be working with Deb
over the past 20 years.
It's actually delivering
school-based programs as well
as family-based
programs, delivering them
and testing them.
And today what I
really want to talk
about is the most robust
experiences that I've had,
is really working
with the community
as a co-investigator
in this process,
so at the table with us.
And so I'm going to take
a little step back just
to highlight some of the
work that we've done.
We have done interviews
really trying
to understand the protective
factors at the community level,
particularly interviewing
over 600 families across 30
different high burden
neighborhoods--
many neighborhoods that
folks can point out
on a cover of a newspaper
article that typically
is that same type
of neighborhoods.
And so essentially what we
did-- and trying to understand
the neighborhood level--
what things place our youth at
risk, place families at risk,
and what things protect them.
One thing that stood out was
just the overall exposure
that our teenage youth had in
terms of exposure to violence.
We had one in five of our
youth, of the 600 interviews
that we conducted, one in
five had seen someone shot
or killed.
One in three had actually
had a close friend or family
member murdered.
So let's just think about
what impact that has.
Elaine's talking
about our schools.
What impact does that
have on our children
that are in schools?
What impact does that
have on them mentally
as well as physically,
their ability
to perform academically--
the impact it has,
as Elaine talked
about on their emotions--
also the secondary trauma
that the teachers have
to deal with addressing that.
So in addition, right now we're
on 59th between 59th and 60th.
If you just went one
mile west of here,
you'd be in the
Englewood community.
This represents
here our interviews
that we conducted across
two neighborhoods,
across 40 respondents,
that really
talked about the amount
of shootings that occurs--
the violence that occurs.
It's difficult to even
find a path in which you
can walk through.
So imagine the exposure
that children have just
going to school.
So we really want to
highlight the impact
that that has in
terms of not only
the exposure that they've
had, but unfortunately
in communities like Englewood,
West Englewood, Auburn Gresham,
it's been an intergenerational
transmission of that exposure.
It's durable.
So what we have done for the
most part for the past 20 years
has really focused on
doing work with families.
We find that 25
years of research
has shown that when
you work with families,
you actually get
at most of the risk
and protective factors that are
associated with youth behavior
outcomes-- whether it's
violence, whether it's
school dropout, teenage
pregnancy, anxiety
and depression,
or substance use.
And so initially
a lot of our work
focused on engaging
those families early.
Engaging families
of kindergartners
and first graders.
Working with them.
And as Elaine mentioned,
despite the schools that
have been exposed to
high levels of violence,
there are strengths
that are there.
Working with families who can
share strengths in a network.
As the previous map showed, it's
difficult to protect your child
in those type of settings from
being exposed to violence.
But what can we do in terms
of providing a safe space
where they could
talk about strategies
to achieve academic and
behavioral goals that they
have, while supporting them
throughout the process?
So creating these
supportive networks--
We've had two programs that
have shown positive impact not
only in behavior, but also
in academic performance,
following first graders
and as well as working
with middle school students.
As a parent of a sixth
grader and as a parent
of a preschooler, I know
that from my preschooler
I am like God to her.
But for my sixth grader he
could care less about me, right?
And so we know that
is a very important
developmental transition
where they begin
to pay attention more to peers.
So we also have a
program that focuses
on those middle
schoolers, making sure
that we are addressing
some of the issues
where they focused
mostly on their peers.
Their primary form of influence
is not the parents anymore,
but it's actually the peers.
And so ultimately it's about
providing that safe space
to share strengths, to talk
about specific strategies,
and to create that
supportive network.
However, we've recognized
that our families are
doing everything
that they can do
to reach the goals that
they have for their children
academically and behaviorally.
Despite that, it
is very difficult
when you see maps
like the maps that we
showed in West Englewood and
Englewood and Auburn Gresham.
So what we've
recognize is that we
need to go above and beyond
just family programming.
We need to go across multiple
systems at multiple levels.
So what I like to highlight
for the rest of this talk
is a partnership that we're
doing with community leads.
And in 2013, Pastor Chris Harris
from Bright Star Community
Outreach was already mobilizing
the community, understanding--
Hey, I'm living what
the maps just showed.
I'm living this exposure.
My congregation's living it.
The people that go
to the schools that
go to my congregation, our
school principals, our teachers
are going through this.
Enough is enough.
We need to focus
on opportunities
to provide resources,
particularly
for the impact that that
has on their mental health.
And so regarding
that, Pastor Harris
was able to already convene over
30 different community partners
to come to the table to
focus like, what can we do
to make our community stronger?
What can we do to strengthen
community and reduce violence?
And the partners were brought on
to a prevention planning system
called Communities That Care.
And they said, you know what.
There's a Center that's at SSA,
that's called the Chicago Youth
Violence Prevention Center.
And I think that this
partnership would be conducive
because they could
help around providing
comprehensive support, technical
assistance and support,
towards the impact
of this system.
The first goal of this system
is to take the individuals that
were convened to address
issues around violence,
and train them and talk to
them about the importance
of prevention science.
How if you are a program that's
focused on teenage pregnancy,
or if you have a program that's
focused on school dropout,
that if we focus on risk
and protective factors,
we can get comfortable
with the table together.
The other part of
that is understanding
the importance of data.
This process is community-led,
coalition-based,
but data driven.
How can we break up into
different work groups,
understand what our
public data says?
What does public
data say in terms
of the Bronzeville
community, one
of our historic
African-American communities
in the United States.
So what can we do
to understand that?
So we look at public data,
we look at crime data,
housing data, education data.
But we also want to
hear from our youth.
What are our youth saying?
What are our 6th, 8th,
10th, and 12th graders
saying about the things
that placed them at risk
or the things that protect them
from youth problem behaviors?
In addition, we
want to also hear
from our neighbors,
our adult residents
across 20 different census
tracks in the Bronzeville
community, to understand what
are the things that they're
seeing.
Where are the resources that
are available to address
some of the risk and
protective factors?
And then finally,
we also understand
that there are community
based organizations
that provide programming
for youth and for families.
What is it that they provide?
We use all of that
information to come up
with a community profile.
That community
profile, including
all of the data
that we collect--
we have community meetings
that we share that
and we get feedback
from the community.
Part of our effort
was to take that data
and ask folks to figure out
what are some of the things
that we learned from the data.
Really quickly, some
things that we learn
is that there were
very few programs
that highlight youth
doing positive things
in the community that
residents could visibly see.
There are very few
programs that focused
on justice involved youth.
And as we know doing work with
families can be very rewarding,
but it's very difficult
because you have
a lot of competing demands.
So as a result, we found
that, with the programs that
were available,
very few programs
focused on family engagement.
And very few programs
focused on early childhood.
So our approach was to use
school principals, residents,
teachers, police officers,
executive directors that
serve in community
based organizations,
to be a part of a community
action plan work group
to come up with two streams.
How can we support existing
programs that already are
believed to have positive
impact in the community,
help them build up
their evidence--
whether it's understanding
pre-implementation,
helping them understand the
importance of needs assessment,
helping them understand
the importance of process
evaluation--
How well do you know that
you're working towards the goals
that you have and eventually
building up steps to evidence
towards program impact.
But, also what ways can we
address the gaps that exist?
Are there tested and
effective programs
that have already been
shown to be effective
in similar contexts?
Can we work with
community leaders
to deliver that program?
So those are the two streams
that we're working with.
Our community action
plan workgroups say,
programming is not enough.
In addition, we know that our
families have been durably,
through multiple generations,
exposed to violence.
We need to have
trauma informed care.
And we need to have credible
messengers that understand.
Bronzeville has experienced
the largest destruction
of public housing in United
States history, the largest
destruction of Chicago Public
Schools in the United States
history.
We need messengers
who understand that.
And so getting that
training is important.
So using education as
a hub of the schools
and of the families
and the residents
that have been impacted by
these large structural changes.
In addition, jobs-- our
residents need jobs.
So what was very rewarding
for me in my career
is that, for the first time,
it wasn't just about family
and youth programming.
It was about
workforce development.
It was about education equity.
And it was all centralized
around trauma informed care.
The other guiding point and the
last point that I want to make
is around the root
causes to violence.
It's important to understand
that the issues that we're
talking about actually have
different mechanisms that,
especially in communities
like Bronzeville,
have begun 100 years ago.
So what we do is we provide
community opportunities
to really talk about
truth and reconciliation.
Talk about opportunities
of the role that racism
has played in terms of
policies regarding education,
policies regarding
housing, policies regarding
economic opportunities.
So some events
that we've had have
been the Be the Healing
Conference that really looks
at the connection from slavery
to Jim Crow segregation
to incarceration and the impact
that has had across housing,
across education,
across workforce.
But we also
highlight our leaders
just like Mamie Till
was a leader, a catalyst
for the civil rights, by
40th and State Street,
having an open
casket for her son
that was brutally murdered
in Money, Mississippi.
Who are the women
that are leading
this work on the South
Side of Chicago now?
So we had an event called
Still Till Tuesdays.
And what we're
currently doing is
we're highlighting the role that
the 1919 Chicago race riots has
played in terms
of being an origin
story for structural
violence in Chicago.
The role that that
played in terms
of the stigmatization
that containment,
as well as the disruption
of communities,
by installing historical
markers with community
allies and civic allies.
I'm very happy to say that
the Office of Racial Justice
and Equity has been a
strong supporter of this.
And we're very excited about
partnering with community
members to uplift this
story around the mechanisms
that help explain
why communities
look the way that they do.
So with that being said,
I'm very proud of the work
that I'm doing.
I'm super appreciative of
the opportunity that we're
doing here on campus.
Last point I want to make
is that it's not just
enough to get community
partners to convene together
through the leadership of
Bright Star Community Outreach.
That is awesome.
But one thing I've
learned from this
is the community
partners have shown us
how to work together on campus.
So we're working
together on campus
through mental
health and trauma,
working with the trauma center
and urban health initiatives,
through workforce development
with the Office of Civic
Engagement, through education
with urban Chicago charter
schools.
So it's about all of us
collaborating across sectors
at multiple levels.
I think that this
is, as Deb mentioned,
things were a lot different
when we looked at our youths.
We looked at as communities.
We labeled them super predators.
We looked at an
individual level.
I'm very proud that we're
focusing on a community wide--
also paying attention to
root causes of violence.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
HAROLD POLLACK: I guess
I can speak from here.
Thanks so much for having me.
I'm Harold Pollack.
I guess I've been in this field
around similar time as Deb has,
about 25 years.
I started out in the
city of New Haven
at the height of the
HIV crack epidemic,
and then did work in
Flint and Detroit.
And then I've been here
in Chicago since 2003.
And I've had a decade of
collaboration with Kim Smith
and others at the Urban
Labs in both the Health Lab
and the Crime Lab.
And we partner with
community members
and nonprofit organizations
and city agencies
to deal with really
profound challenges,
as Franklin points out. if you
go one mile from this building,
you're in a different world.
And it's a world that has
much that's precious in it
and much that is really
challenged about it.
I would say if you had to ask
what's the core mission in all
the different projects
that I'm involved in,
I like to say that we're
trying to give people
a sense of realistic
evidence-based optimism
that feasible real world
interventions can help.
And that these
interventions can help
at a scale that is actually
meaningful relative
to the problem.
Everyone in Chicago across
the political spectrum
is really sad and concerned
about all the problems
that came up today.
But there's so many
deep structural issues
that are behind them.
There's so many daunting
aspects to the problem
that it's very easy to become
pessimistic, and therefore
passive, that in
the here and now
we can really make a difference.
And I think that the work of
my co-panelists and others
is really important because it
gives us a sense of efficacy--
that there's things we can do.
The things that
Pastor Harris does,
the things that the schools do,
things that Kim's collaborators
do, they make a difference.
None of them is the polio
vaccine, but they help.
The first project I got
involved in at the Crime Lab
was to help evaluate
youth guidance
as becoming a Mann program.
And now it's a big thing
now, but 10 years ago, I
remember very well sitting
around the conference table
meeting with all the counselors
at their weekly staff meetings,
and just hearing about what
life was like for the kids.
And I just learned a
ton in that project.
And the first thing
I learned, of course,
was it's really hard to be
a 17-year-old kid growing up
in Chicago.
And it is an awful
lot of the behaviors
that the middle aged may
regards as really off-putting
by these young people make a lot
of sense in terms of the life
that they lead.
I remember I was
once having lunch
with some high schoolers in
the far South Side of Chicago.
One of the boys there said,
just kind of matter of fact,
that, I could totally
kick your ass.
And sort of
semi-apropos of nothing.
And I said, yeah, no kidding.
And I'm a shrimpy, out
of shape middle-aged guy.
And they're kind of fascinated
that I can be an adult man,
and that that's fine,
that my life doesn't
require that I am formidable
in my day to day life.
And that's not accessible
to them in the same way.
And then they're trying to
find a version of adult manhood
that works for them in a
very difficult environment.
And I really have
a lot of respect
for the way these young
men navigate their world
despite many challenges.
I think maybe the greatest
experience of my career,
or one of them, was over the
Quan Club here at U of C,
where we had all of the
youth guidance coaches
and counselors here to
see the initial results
from our first randomized
trial this year.
This was a randomized
trial where
the staff of the intervention--
they saw the young men
that they worked with.
And they saw a lot of sad things
happening to these young men.
People got arrested.
People got suspended
from school.
People had all sorts
of misfortunes.
And, of course,
they never saw what
was happening to
the young men who
were part of the control group,
who they never interacted with.
And I think many of
the youth guidance
that were absolutely
convinced that there was going
to be no program
effect whatsoever
because they saw
all the challenges.
And I remember I put
up a PowerPoint slide--
not as slick as your
PowerPoints-- but I put up--
you know, they
weren't respectable.
I put up a PowerPoint slide
where I had a bar graph.
Here's in the control group.
Here's the arrests.
Here's the number of kids who
got F's and various outcomes
like that.
And then I hit Next.
And the bar graph came up where
it showed the treatment control
contrast.
And the treatment group got
arrested notably less often.
They had fewer F's.
And they had some
other improvements.
And there was a
gasp in the room.
And it was such a great moment
because it was showing the work
that these people were doing.
These young people
who were mentors,
who were social
workers, who were
working with these young people,
were making a difference.
They were not solving all
the problems with these kids.
But for an intervention
that cost $1,500 per kid,
they were making
a real difference.
And that would just
always stay with me
as one of the great
experiences that I've ever had.
One of my most recent studies
that I've been involved in
is something called the
Chicago Inmate Study.
And both with Kaylee
White, and Phil Cook,
and Kim Smith, and others.
We've interviewed a lot of gun
offenders in Cook County Jail
and in seven
prisons in Illinois,
and tried to understand--
how do you get your guns?
How do you use your guns?
How long did you have your gun
before you used it in a crime?
And in 2016, we did
semi-structured interviews
with 221 men in seven prisons.
And all of them were basically
Chicago weapons offenders.
The most striking pattern
was how many of these men
were themselves
victims of violence.
47% of the men that we
talked to had been wounded
by gunfire in their life.
We found very similar results
in the Cook County Jail survey.
And sometimes they would show
the interviewers the scars.
Some of the guys
were in wheelchairs.
They were not lying
to our interviewers.
And when we asked
them, why are you
carrying a gun around Chicago?
They would say,
why do you think?
Many of them gave us some
version of that lyric,
you know, I'd rather be judged
by 12 than carried by 6.
And these are young
guys who are scared
of each other, who are armed up,
and who are trying to be safe.
And it's a real challenge.
I should say that very few
of them who had been shot
cooperated with the police.
And the more likely they
were to know who shot them,
the less likely they were
to assist in the efforts
to apprehend these individuals.
And building a
police-community connection
and police-victims/offender
connection is so important
to improve our ability to
solve these crimes and to make
communities safer.
A lot of my current
work now is also
trying to find ways
to reduce violence
between individuals with serious
mental illness and police.
After the Laquan
McDonald shooting
and a couple of other
prominent examples
where a person in
behavioral crisis
had been injured
by police or shot,
Chicago set up something called
the Police Accountability Task
Force, led by a then
person unknown to me,
named Lori Lightfoot.
And I was on the de-escalation
working group in that.
And one of the things that
I really learned there
is also how difficult it
is to be a first responder,
or to be a police officer--
to be an ambulance
staff person who
deals with people
who might experience
these kinds of crises.
And I talked to
a lot of officers
who have special training in
crisis intervention teams.
There are various methods
to deal with people
in behavioral crisis.
And it was striking to me
how many of these police
officers had a family member
who lived with mental illness.
A disproportionate number
of the CIA officers
were women, who were often
most effective in de-escalating
situations and
assisting people who
might be having some sort
of a mental health crisis.
Another thing that I really
learned in that work,
and I'm still trying to
learn, is the importance
of giving the mundane realities
of the day-to-day work
life of teachers,
police officers,
ambulance folks, 911 operators--
to give them mundane realities
of their life its due.
And if you want to improve the
performance of these systems
in Chicago to improve
public safety,
we really have to
understand, what
is the day-to-day experience
like of the people
that we trust to carry
guns or the people
that we asked to go out
and work with someone
who might be in difficulty.
And it is really
striking how many
very basic things matter a lot.
If there's a gentleman
standing out in the street
screaming at people, and
he's in a really long debate
with Jesus--
and Jesus is talking back to
him about various obscure points
in Chicago Public policy--
it's much more likely--
The principles of de-escalation
are pretty straightforward
for police in those
types of situations--
time and distance.
Give that person
time to calm down.
Keep your physical
distance from that person
while they're calming down
so that you don't get hurt.
That person doesn't get hurt.
That's those are the key
principles of de-escalation.
If I had 45 seconds to
teach you de-escalation,
that's what I would teach you.
Well, if it's 2 o'clock in
the afternoon on Wednesday
in uptown, police are
pretty good at doing that.
If it's 9 o'clock at night
in Englewood on a Saturday,
it's a lot harder for them.
I remember there's an officer
that we talked to on our task
force, where she
was describing how
this gentleman on
his bed, who needed
to go to a psychiatric
facility-- and she
was really doing a good
job calming him down.
But it was at night.
It was in Englewood.
And her boss was behind her.
And while she was talking
to this gentleman,
her cell phone was
going absolutely nuts.
There's a shooting here.
There's a robbery here.
We need you to be
in this other place.
And at some point, her boss
who was there with her runs
past her, jumps on the man,
tackles him, and cuffed him.
And he says, I'm sorry, but
I just had to close this out
because we had
other places to be.
I didn't have the time to
be with you to really deal
with this the way I would have
liked to if I had more time.
And we had we have to
be culturally competent,
not just in understanding
the communities
that we've been talking
about-- also understanding
the systems, and organizations,
and people who we ask
to deal with these problems.
And if you're asking
police officers
to behave in a certain way,
you have to understand,
what are the challenges
that they face--
so that they can do
what we want them to do.
So I want to make
sure to give Kim
a chance to talk because I
know we're getting down there.
So I would just say that
it's a real privilege
to do the work that we do.
It's difficult in a lot of ways.
And it's sad and challenging.
But the work that we do
is really significant.
And I don't mean
it's significant
like we should win fancy
awards and that kind of thing.
If you want to give me an
award, I'll be happy to take it.
But what I mean is that we
work on problems that matter.
We have an opportunity
to do things that help.
And it really matters
that we get this right.
And we use all sorts
of advanced methods,
but that's not really
key to what we do.
What's really key
to what we do is
earning the trust of the
people and the organizations
that generate and own
the data that we use.
One of the interesting things,
by the way, in our work
is the politics of data.
And turns out the most
powerful person in Chicago
is the person who owns that data
use agreement that you need.
And the person who's nominally
in charge is not that person.
You're nice to that person.
But the person you
really want to understand
is who owns that
data use agreement.
And Kim and I have quite
a few conversations
about how to manage
things like that properly.
And it really matters to have a
tactile understanding of what's
happening-- the people,
the places, events,
and organizations that we study.
And I would say that it
makes the job a lot more
difficult than it might be if I
just were sitting in my office
analyzing secondary data and
sort of crunching the numbers.
But it's a lot
more rewarding too.
And so every day I'm excited to
come to work and do this work
even though it's
very difficult. And I
think I'll stop there
and let Kim take it over.
KIM SMITH: All right.
Good afternoon, everybody.
Thank you, Harold,
for that introduction.
My name is Kim Smith.
I am the Associate Director of
the University of Chicago Crime
and Education Labs.
We were founded 10 years ago
by Harold and Jens Ludwig, who
I believe you may have
heard from earlier, really
to leverage the brainpower
and the scientific rigor
happening here at the
University of Chicago,
and leveraging that
to address some
of the most acute and
intractable social challenges
in Chicago, particularly
gun violence.
Jens tells a story often.
10 years ago the University
of Chicago, as it still is,
was known for its
various Nobel prizes.
All the faculty
on staff, who were
doing cutting edge research.
But after dark,
no faculty member
would go one mile west or south
because of the gun violence
challenge.
And it really is a shame
that, as a university,
we have not been able to
contribute to the learnings
and progress on this issue.
So what we do and
what we intend to do
is really to partner
with government
because government is
where you achieve scale.
Philanthropy is
incredibly important.
They're nimble and
flexible, and can take risks
and jump start initiatives.
But if we really want to
make lasting, sustainable,
transformational
change on this issue,
helping the government
spend their resources more
effectively is what we
should be focusing on.
So at the University of Chicago
Crime Labs and the Urban Labs,
our motto is really to do
science and service of cities.
We partner with
our civic leaders,
our nonprofit partners-- to
identify promising solutions.
We understand that,
as researchers, we
may have a good understanding
of what regressions to run,
and how to crunch data do
different types of analysis.
But we are by no
means the ones who
are closest to some
of these challenges.
The nonprofit organizations,
the police officers
who are responding
to these calls,
are really the
boots on the ground
who have some of
the most insight
into what could be useful.
So we ask them, what do
you think is promising?
What are the programs that
you think have the potential
to really move the needle?
Once we identify those
programs, we test them.
We subject them to
rigorous analysis,
quasi-experimental methods
to really understand which
programs work--
for whom and why.
And if those
programs do not work,
what are other alternatives?
And if we find something that
is effective at either reducing
violent crime outcomes or
improving educational outcomes,
we then try to work with our
partners in the government
and in the nonprofit
organizations
to scale these programs.
We are incredibly
privileged to be
able to work with a lot
of different government
and policymaker
partners in Chicago.
These are just a
few of the folks
who we have data
sharing agreements with,
and have done projects
with over the years--
spanning the Chicago Public
Schools, the mayor's office,
the 911 call center.
At the county,
we're also working
with the Sheriff's office,
the Cook County Jail, the Cook
County State's
Attorney's Office,
and we also do work with
the Illinois Department
of Corrections, as Harold
mentioned previously,
and the Illinois Department
of Juvenile Justice.
Nonprofit partners-- again,
these are just a few examples,
but we are really
in a very privileged
and honorable position
to be able to work
so closely with such amazing
organizations across the city.
Today we want to talk about a
few of the different programs
that we are currently
evaluating that we
think hold real
promise to addressing
gun violence in Chicago.
And they have an origin story
to these programs in particular
that start in 2016.
For those of us who are
here in Chicago in 2016,
this was the year that the
city experienced an almost 60%
increase in homicides,
compared to 2015.
And you can see here--
this is a figure showing you
the homicide rate going back
to 1985.
This is the number of homicides
per 100 people in Chicago.
So in the early '90s at the peak
of the crack cocaine epidemic,
Chicago, like many other large
cities around the country,
had a historically
high homicide rate.
In the past 30 years we've
made significant progress
in reducing the rate,
but in 2016 there
was an almost sudden, sustained,
striking increase in homicides.
And it was really unusual
for the size of Chicago
to experience such a surge.
Almost 770 people
were killed that year.
In response, the Chicago
Police Department
and the mayor's office
brought in a team of experts
from around the
country to identify
promising policing interventions
that could be useful.
And one of the things
this team identified
was that the Chicago
Police Department--
while they have one of the
more sophisticated data
and IT systems of a police
department in the United
States, they were not
using this information
in a way that was systematic or
actionable on a regular basis.
Some of the anecdotes
we heard were--
if you were a police
commander of a district--
so you're responsible for 200
officers and a geography that
several square miles large--
if you're the police commander
in charge of making allocation
decisions of where officers go,
what types of activities
they're doing--
the insights that you
might get on a daily basis
can happen in the parking
lot, or in the bathroom,
in the hallway--
someone will say,
Commander, there
was a shooting that happened
at 79th and Ashland last night.
And it was XYZ gang
versus this other one.
Two seconds later, he
might get something that's
completely contradictory.
We've heard stories of
commanders coming in at 4:00 AM
in the morning to read
police reports just
to understand what happened
in my district last night
versus two weeks ago
versus six months ago.
So there wasn't a really
dedicated and regular process
whereby police commanders were
making decisions about where
to put their officers.
So following 2016, the
mayor's office and the police
department created a strategy
known as the Strategic Decision
Support Centers.
This project really brought
together different technology
and processes, and notably
from the University of Chicago,
crime analysts.
So the Crime Lab, at the
time, loaned some of our staff
to sit alongside police
officers in these rooms that
were built out.
And we call that
Cops Plus Nerds.
I think we were a little
skeptical at the time
that University of
Chicago eggheads
would do well with seasoned
Chicago Police Department
officers.
They haven't kicked us out
yet, and we've actually
built a good rapport over time.
But I think this was
an example of us really
trying to do what we could to be
helpful to the city in a moment
of crisis.
In a nutshell, I think
this is a good example
of the type of thing that we
were able to bring to bear.
So there was, at the time,
a really troubling pattern
of stolen vehicles,
in particular,
being used in
drive by shootings.
And the commander of
one police district
asked one of my colleagues
to do something--
prepare some analysis
about stolen vehicles.
And my colleague said, I
have no idea what you want.
But I will look at
the data and see
what patterns I can identify.
So what you're seeing
here is a pattern
that my colleague found.
The red dots are where vehicles
were being stolen from.
And then the green dots or
where they were being recovered,
several weeks, months apart.
And it's a pretty
striking pattern.
You can see they're being
stolen from a neighboring
district in the Eighth
District, and all
being recovered
within a few block
cluster in the 7th district.
And absent this
visualization, the pattern
could have gone on forever.
It was hard.
If you can imagine if you're
just reading paper reports,
how would you identify this
without some more sophisticated
visualization.
And this is the type
of thing that we
were able to do with the
Strategic Decision Support
Centers.
I think, at the
time, the impact was
pretty striking for the
people who were involved.
Two weeks after this
program went live,
and we started
embedding our analysts,
the commanders thought
something was different.
Shootings seemed
to be going down.
But when we brought
it back to Jens,
he-- being the skeptical
University of Chicago
economist that he is-- said,
well, we have to evaluate it.
It could be a number of
things that are leading
to this reduction in violence.
And when we did
evaluate it, we found
that the SDSCs in
Englewood, in particular,
led to a 26% reduction
in shootings that year,
which resulted in 70
fewer shootings that year.
And what was really
encouraging about these results
is that it was not necessarily
the case that there
was a flooding of
police resources
into the Englewood
police district leading
to this reduction.
One thing that we are very
interested in understanding
is how do we reduce the harms
of the criminal justice system.
Heavy handed enforcement
has led to an era
of mass incarceration-- and
really trying to understand
how can we be very precise
and intentional about law
enforcement and criminal justice
administration in a way that
reduces the harms and also
maximizes public safety.
So we did not see an increase
in arrests in Englewood.
Instead we saw a decrease
in arrests and an increase
in what are called positive
community interactions.
So the police
department was really
using the data and the insights
from the SDSCs, an example
that I brought up
earlier, and using
that to target
their enforcement,
also increasing relationships
and interactions
with members of the community.
In addition to some of the
policing work that I just
mentioned, we're also very
excited about some work
that we're doing with
Heartland Alliance
and as part of a program
called READI Chicago.
Over the years we've done
several of these large scale
RCTs, randomized control
trials, impact evaluations
to understand what can we do
to move the needle on violence
in particular.
And what we found is programs
that leverage cognitive
behavioral therapy, really
incorporating elements of Meta
thinking-- so think
about your thinking--
as well as summer
jobs programs have
seemed to reduce violence
involvement for youth
in particular.
Again following the surge
in violence in 2016,
we were challenged to
think, what can we do
right now to address violence?
And one thing that we did
was look at the demographics
of homicide victims.
Who are the individuals
who are being
shot and killed this year?
And what we found was the
majority of individuals
who are shooting victims were
actually over the age of 18.
And this is quite
striking, because when
we did a scan of
programming-- what
is the suite of violence
prevention programming
available in Chicago?
The large majority of it was
geared towards individuals
who are under the age of 18.
And of course, prevention,
and primary prevention,
in particular, are incredibly
important and crucial aspects
of a well-rounded and strategic
violence prevention plan.
But we thought if you want
to make a difference today
in the number of victims,
it's really important
to try to identify programming
for 87% of those individuals
who are over the age of 18.
And another important
aspect of programming
and what we saw when
we looked at the data
is many of the individuals
were being killed
and shot each year do have
criminal justice system
involvement.
They have histories
of being arrested--
of being arrested
for violent crimes.
And those types of histories
are often a barrier
to participation in a lot
of formal institutions.
So thinking about not only
the age of individuals-- where
do you find older men who may
have spent some time in prison
or jail, who may be
distrustful of institutions
and who may have experienced
years of compounded
trauma over the years.
How do you find them?
How do you engage them?
And how do you work to
change their trajectories?
So that is the
inspiration for a program
that we're currently evaluating
called READI Chicago.
READI Chicago is really
trying to work with the guys.
And it's a program
specifically for men.
It's trying to work with the
guys who are at the highest
risk of becoming victims
or potentially perpetrators
of violence.
And it's using
relentless engagement.
So we are, to Franklin's
point, working
with credible messengers,
street outreach workers who
may have a history of being
gang involved themselves, who
are from the communities
where they're working
with these outreach workers
to engage the guys who
are at highest risk.
We're leveraging cognitive
behavioral therapy.
I don't think it's being called
cognitive behavioral therapy.
I believe the guys are
actually calling it
Control Alt Delete-- so
controlling your emotions,
altering, and then
deleting bad habits.
We're tying it to an 18
month transitional job
that is staged.
So stage one is a
minimum wage job.
And then with each
incremental stage,
the guys are getting
additional skills
and additional
responsibility that they
can add to their resume and use
to be successful post-program.
And there are a suite
of support services.
So, as I said earlier,
this population
of men who are at
the highest risk--
we've done a lot
of qualitative work
and we understand that they
have a complexity of needs.
A large share are
experiencing homelessness.
They may be parents.
They may be fighting
court cases at the time.
So we try to tie them
and introduce them
to different service providers,
different legal aid societies,
in order to make sure they're
as successful as possible.
And one more point about
relentless engagement--
we, as a society,
have failed these guys
for most of their lives.
And if they make
a mistake, we're
not going to give up on them.
The Street outreach workers go--
they don't just knock on their
door once and then give up.
We expect them to say no.
We expect them to have setbacks.
And we are relentless
in keeping them
engaged in this programming.
So the program is
underway right now.
We're evaluating outcomes.
We should have them
available in maybe a couple
months to a year.
So stay tuned.
But this is a program that
we're really excited about,
and initial signs suggest that
we're reaching the guys who
are at highest risk.
And they're coming.
They're saying engaged.
They're taking up the program.
And they're
participating in the job.
And the last thing I want
to highlight about some
of the work that we do that's
not as sexy as the impact
evaluations--
but it's really work that
we do to add capacity
to our government partners.
We work, as I
showed you earlier,
with a lot of different
agencies in Chicago and Cook
County and Illinois.
And I think when we started
the Crime Lab 10 years ago,
we overestimated the
capacity of the government
to be able to do even quick
turnaround data analysis
themselves.
What we know in New York,
where we have a small office,
is the mayor's Office
of Criminal Justice team
there is staffed by 100 people.
In Chicago, the office
is staffed by eight.
And I should say that
eight is a 100% increase
from the case two years ago.
And considering
how violence is so
elevated in Chicago
compared to New York.
It seems kind of
mind blowing that we
would have such a such limited
capacity in the mayor's office,
given all the things
that the public safety
team and the mayor's
office has to respond to.
So oftentimes, for the mayor's
office here, and for the police
department, for the
fire department,
for the public schools--
what we do is we really
try to be helpful in terms
of data analysis.
If they have a question
about, for example,
how many Chicago
Public school students
are being exposed to
violence within a two block
radius of their house?
Those are the types of
questions that we ask.
I can understand why,
if you're the mayor,
it's not as sexy to add like
a data analyst to your budget
every year.
But that type of
insight and analysis
is what we think is
incredibly helpful, given
that we have a scarcity
of resources in Chicago.
I don't think I
need to tell anyone
that we're facing you know
billions of dollars every year
in terms of pension obligations.
Being really targeted about
the resources that we have
is all the more important.
And we are very privileged
and excited to be
able to play a role in
some of those decisions.
And with that, I think we're
going to have questions now.
DEBORAH GORMAN-SMITH:
One of the things
that I want to
highlight and point out
is that as you've seen through
all of these presentations
that people at the
University of Chicago
are very involved in using
research to help guide policy
and programming.
And importantly, I think,
through all of these,
you also saw that these are
partnerships-- that we're not
the University of Chicago
coming out and saying,
this is how you
should do things.
But these are
really partnerships
where they're equal
people at the table,
equal voice at
the table, which I
think is critically important.
So with that, if we have
time for two questions
if anyone has a question.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
Thank you so much, everyone,
for that very informative
slides that you have showed.
I'm a proud product of
Chicago Public Schools.
And I had amazing,
wonderful CPS teachers.
Unfortunately, I do have some
memories of gang shootings
on campus.
There is one
particular memory where
we had to duck under desks.
And then, next day
classes resumed as usual.
And we had tests and attendance
and things like that.
And my question is--
to be honest, although the
teachers were amazing--
They were wonderful.
They were very ill-trained
to deal with gang shootings,
to deal with
drug-related problems,
to deal with disadvantaged
students go through violence--
and kind of see violence
unfold in the community.
And what kinds of things
can we do for teachers
to prepare them because
the teachers were
really desensitized, and had
no idea what they were doing.
And I should also say that
the only thing the school
implemented after multiple gang
shoot outs on campus ground
was randoms detectors.
ELAINE ALLENSWORTH: OK.
Yeah.
I mean the status
quo in schools is
that teachers are getting
no training in how
to deal with trauma, how to deal
with violence prevention, what
to do--
and then we get the results
that we do because of that.
And so there are a
number of initiatives
right now in Chicago Public
Schools, not in every school--
but in Chicago public
schools and other schools
to help teachers in
terms of understanding
trauma, understanding
the effects of violence
on students, and supporting
each other around trauma
and around supporting students--
as well as different
programs in terms
of how you address crime
and violence in the school.
There aren't enough
resources for the need,
and a lot of schools
are in a lot of teachers
are struggling even when
they have the resources
because it means really changing
how your school is operating.
And also there are a
lot of the policies that
undermine teachers' ability to
respond effectively-- so things
like testing pressure
and different kinds
of accountability.
DEBORAH GORMAN-SMITH: And
I'll just jump in too.
I think it's just
unrealistic for us
to expect teachers to
do all of those things.
So I have a Bachelors and
a Masters in Education.
I was a teacher.
There are a lot of things
that teachers have to do.
But we have to stop thinking
that they can be social workers
and psychologists
and school nurses
and all of those other
things that we need to do.
So we need to invest in
a whole network of adults
to help do this, and not
expect that this is just one
more thing that we have
to put on to teachers.
HAROLD POLLACK: The shortage
of social workers and nurses
across Chicago Public
Schools is a real challenge.
I think that's just so
important because there
are groups of people who are
well-trained to be helpful.
My children went through the
Homewoood Flossmoor schools
in the South suburbs.
And there were maybe five
times as many social workers
per student at
Homewood Flossmoor
as there would be in
Chicago Public school that
had much greater need.
AUDIENCE: OK.
So thank you for coming
and speaking to us
and also for all of your work
investigating and creating
evidence based solutions
for these problems.
I was wondering if
you see your work
being able to demonstrate
a lasting solution that
could possibly be incorporated
into health insurance.
I know you were mentioning
that you incorporate things
like cognitive behavioral
therapy and in social work.
And I was wondering
if that's something
that we could possibly look
forward to in the future.
HAROLD POLLACK:
The one thing that
comes to mind for
me is that Medicaid
is the financial oxygen
behind almost any large scale
intervention that you'd want
to do to assist people--
whether it's coverage for
cognitive behavioral therapies,
whether it's making
sure that individuals
at risk of behavioral crises can
get proper assertive community
treatment and other issues--
One of the problems that we
found in our interventions
for people at risk
of behavioral crises
was that if they had a diagnosis
of serious mental illness,
we could get insurance
to reimburse sending out
mental health professionals
into the community to help them.
If they had recalcitrant
alcohol disorders that
were leading to
the same behaviors,
Medicaid would not pay for that.
And there's a disconnect
between what's needed
and what's reimbursed.
And the fact that Illinois has
a very troubled Medicaid program
is a real problem
for us as we try
to bring resources to bear
to deal with mental health
and physical health challenges
of children and adults
in the city.
DEBORAH GORMAN-SMITH: I think
it's not unlike health, where
we had to shift the focus
so that we recognize
that it's actually cost
effective to invest
in prevention.
And it's the same thing
on the social side.
So with that, I know
that we are over time.
I appreciate everyone's
patience and participation.
And one more thank
you to the panelists.
[APPLAUSE]
