Welcome to the Department of Community Wellness and Safety
(Formerly known as Office of Violence Prevention)
Our aim is to stop violence before it starts. Community-wide prevention is the most effective, long-term solution to violence, and the Department of Community Wellness and Safety engages a wide range of partners to facilitate a multidisciplinary, population-level approach to influence the social, behavioral, and environmental factors that contribute to violence. The Department of Community Wellness and Safety brings together agencies, experts, and community resources on efforts that reduce
- Domestic and Intimate Partner Violence
- Sexual Assault
- Child Abuse
- Human Trafficking
- Children Witness to Violence
- Community Violence
- Gun Violence
- Interpersonal Violence, Intentional injury, and Homicide
Learn About Our Work
The Milwaukee Promise initiative is a multifaceted city effort to address systemic poverty, joblessness, poor health, crime and low educational achievement in city neighborhoods.
View Promise Zones Map
View Individual Zones
Featured News
Springtime Guide
This spring, find helpful tips on getting involved with neighborhood cleanups, improving your home, creating gardens and green spaces, being active outdoors, and staying prepared for fire and storm hazards. Take advantage of community resources and grant incentives to make improvements in your community.
Year of Housing
Visit our Year of Housing webpage to find housing-related resources, data to track City progress in its housing goals, and discover what City government is doing to address the housing crisis. This page was created in response to the ongoing affordability crisis that our nation faces.
Hello Summer - Fun for Youth
Explore our Hello Summer website for internships, jobs, events, youth programming, summer child care, summer camps, and more!
Find plenty of youth activities and free events to keep busy and have fun all summer long.
Meetings & Events
In the News
- Resources to help prevent, interrupt and respond to violence
- Quinn Taylor on a gun safety training program in Milwaukee
- Community leaders, residents hold vigil to remember police officer Kendall Corder
- City of Milwaukee offers free summer programs to keep kids safe, engaged
- Milwaukee survivors of gun violence come together
- Survivors of violence honored at gala
Why take a Public Health Approach to Violence?
Each year, millions of individuals, families, and communities bear the physical, mental, and economic costs of violence. As a leading cause of injury, disability, and premature death, this issue compromises health and safety. Merely witnessing violent incidents can result in psychological disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and stress. Violence discourages economic development in troubled areas, thereby affecting the accessibility of jobs, healthy food, and safe housing. The physical wellbeing of residents, who stay indoors to avoid violent behavior in their community, can exacerbate health problems.
Fortunately, violence is a learned behavior and is preventable.
The public health approach uses a four-pronged framework to investigate, understand, and address violence by:
- Defining the nature and scope of the violence problem through data collection
- Researching why violence occurs, who it affects, risk and protective factors, and other influences that can be impacted through intervention strategies
- Designing, implementing, and evaluating violence prevention strategies
- Ensuring widespread adoption of evidence-based practices on an individual, family, community, and societal level
Karin Tyler
DCWS Director