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Feb 27 2012

Event Video

Violence Prevention: Policy and Practice

By Marla Davis Bellamy, J.D., M.G.A., Brandon T. Jones, and Jamira Burley

In this video from the 2011 Dart Center workshop "Getting it Right: Reporting on Youth Violence," advocates working on the ground in Philadelphia talk about what works.

Marla Bellamy and Brandon Jones of Philadelphia CeaseFire, Jamira Burley of the Student Peace Alliance and Ted Corbin of the Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice and Brandon talk about their experience preventing youth violence in Philadelphia. Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, introduces.

This video is from a two-day workshop held at WHYY in Philadelphia in Decmber, 2011, made possible by generous funding from the Thomas Scattergood Behavioral Health Foundation and additional support from the Stoneleigh Foundation:  "Getting it Right: Reporting on Youth Violence."

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Marla Davis Bellamy, J.D., M.G.A.

  • Marla Davis Bellamy is the executive director of the Center for Bioethics, Urban Health and Policy at the Temple University School of Medicine, and Director of Philadelphia CeaseFire, a public health violence intervention program developed in Chicago. Prior to joining Temple, Davis Bellamy served as executive director of the Anti-Violence Partnership of Philadelphia and for five years prior as chief of staff for the PA Department of Health in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Over her career, Davis Bellamy has served as executive vice president of special projects at Universal Companies, director of community affairs at the Univ. of Pennsylvania Health System, executive director of the Healthcare Management Alternatives Foundation, Inc. and government relations liaison for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Brandon T. Jones

  • Brandon T. Jones is an outreach worker for Philadelphia CeaseFire, a public health violence intervention program that originated in Chicago, Illinois. A native of Philadelphia, Jones was part of the youth violence problem in the city until he turned his life around and became part of the solution. As an outreach worker, Jones works to reduce the number of homicides and shootings in the 22nd police district in Philadelphia by recruiting and working one-on-one with clients between the ages of 14 and 25 who are actively involved in high risk street activity. Jones works round the clock to motivate his clients to adopt more positive lifestyles. He also assists them with obtaining employment, GED or job training.

Jamira Burley

  • Jamira Burley, 23, is an educator and activist in Philadelphia. As a young woman growing up in a city with skyrocketing rates of violence that resulted in the murder of her brother and stepfather, Burley founded the Overbrook High Panther Peace Core to provide students with nonviolent alternatives to address conflict. In 2007, the Peace Core initiative granted $50,000 to implement the program into the top ten “persistently dangerous” high schools in Philadelphia.

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