A Toolkit for Cities: Building a Multi-Actor Local Prevention Framework

Chapter 5: Conducting a Needs and Vulnerabilities Assessment

The process for developing a trauma-informed and culturally responsive city-led local framework to prevent and respond to hate and extremism that can lead to violence typically starts with gaining an understanding of three core elements: 1) local hate and extremism-related and other threats to social cohesion and their underlying drivers; 2) prevention-related vulnerabilities in the relevant city; and 3) existing assets in the city relevant to addressing these threats that can be leveraged for such a framework. These elements can be captured in a ‘Needs and Vulnerability Assessment’ (NVA) that will inform the LPF, including by identifying current gaps in the city’s prevention infrastructure that can be addressed in the framework’s recommended action steps.

Below is a recommended methodology for conducting an NVA. It outlines both quantitative and qualitative means of gathering relevant information. Consistent with Strong Cities’ approach, each city should tailor the process to meet its unique needs, available resources, and circumstances.

Compiling Information

Hate and extremism-related threats that can lead to violence

As outlined above, to best understand the hate and extremism landscape, a city can utilise both existing data on hate and extremism incidents in the geographic area (i.e. zip code/s, county, or state) as well as qualitative surveys – whether online questionnaires or peer-to-peer consultations – of community-based organisations and residents to capture their experiences and concerns regarding the local hate and extremism landscape, especially that which can lead to violence.

For a non-exhaustive list of potential data sources, please see Appendix A. Ideally, data should be limited to hate and extremism-motivated acts of violence and other relevant incidents from the past three to five years to ensure continued relevance.

For a suggested list of questions for surveys of / consultations with community partners and residents, please see Appendix B.

Cities also have access to proprietary information (e.g. hate crime data, hate incident reporting, suspicious activity reports, complaints) that can be gathered from law enforcement, city council, city commissions, advisory groups, and other relevant city entities to inform their understanding of the hate and extremism threat landscape – some of which may already appear on city government websites. Before accessing or analysing such data, any personally identifiable information (PII) should be removed to ensure privacy protections for residents while still allowing the city to understand general population trends.

Vulnerabilities

In a public health approach to prevention, practitioners focus on indicative behaviours of hate and extremism that can lead to violence, which can be enabled or dissuaded by an individual’s environment, such as the ‘risk’ that can render one susceptible to engaging in hate and extremist-motivated violence and the ‘protective’ factors that foster greater resilience to engaging in such behaviours.

At the city level, communal risk and protective factors can be measured by indexing a wide range of demographic, social, economic, health, and environmental metrics to understand what risk factors are contributing to communities’ susceptibility to hate, extremism, and polarisation, as well as what protective factors are present preventing such susceptibility. This data can be drawn from publicly available governmental reports, nationwide surveys, and other sources. For a list of potential nationwide vulnerabilities and strengths data sources, please see Appendix D. Additionally, some states and counties have public data centres and other information repositories that can be leveraged for more state-, county-, and city-specific information.

Cities also have access to proprietary information – e.g., mental health, substance abuse, unhoused population – that can be tapped from relevant city and county agencies that can inform both community and individual-level risk and protective factors. As before, any Personally Identifiable Information (PII) should be removed before accessing such data or conducting analysis, to ensure privacy protections for residents while still allowing the city to understand general population trends.

As previously noted, it is also important to survey relevant community-based organisations, government agencies, and residents on their concerns related to potential vulnerabilities and strengths in the community to ensure data reflects on-the-ground realities. For a suggested list of questions for surveys of / consultations with community partners and residents, please revisit Appendix B.

Assets  

Cities have access to many administrative, legal, communal, public health, and programmatic resources – including those available at a national, state-wide, or county-wide level – that are relevant to, and can be leveraged for, prevention-related activities, whether or not they were created specifically to address hate and extremism that can lead to violence. These can include faith or other community leaders; community-based organisations; cultural, educational, and other social institutions; government or non-governmental programmes; policy frameworks; and legal and administrative structures. Identifying resources already on hand, or easily within reach, is crucial for cities aiming to integrate hate and extremism prevention into existing relevant frameworks, structures, and/or programs rather than developing new ones to address these threats.

One essential element is a ‘stakeholder directory’ of all organisations, agencies, programmes, and services available in the city that can be leveraged accordingly. For guidance on how to develop a stakeholder directory, see Strong Cities’ previous guidance, ‘A Methodology for Developing a Directory of Local Prevention Stakeholders, Organisations, and Programs.’

For a list of other potential assets that can be identified, please see Appendix C.

As before, surveying communal partners and residents on which potential assets they are aware of can also be instrumental. For a suggested list of questions for surveys of and/or consultations with community partners and residents, please revisit Appendix B.

What else can be done? 

Resources permitting, a city, including in collaboration with a local university or other partner, can also commission a survey of a random, demographically representative sample of its entire population. The survey can measure community attitudes towards hate and extremism that can lead to violence, the local government’s response to these issues, the community’s resilience to hate and extremism, the degree of resilient coping in the community, the level of civic engagement, and/or related issues. A questionnaire can be adapted from a variety of relevant survey instruments, including the following:

• Building Resilience Against Extremist Violence (the BRAVE-14 Scale)
• Brief Resilient Coping Scale
• Civic Engagement Scale
• Belonging Barometer

Such a survey can provide quantifiable data (rather than anecdotal information) on a variety of topics: 

• Which parts of the population are more or less resilient to hate and extremism that can lead to violence (e.g. youth vs. older adults, men vs. women)?
• Which neighbourhoods would benefit from more prevention or other resilience programmes?
• Which governmental (and non-governmental) institutions need to be part of the solution? 
• Which institutions need to generate greater trust, and 
• Which communities have strong inter-communal cohesion, and which do not? 

With this information, a city can better tailor its LPF to the specific needs of particular communities and populations. City leaders can develop strategic communications accordingly, highlight what the city will be doing, and which agencies will be involved.

Of course, a city should ensure that such a survey is done with a culturally-sensitive, trauma-informed approach, and is not exploited to label any particular communities or neighbourhoods as ‘suspect’ or a security threat. If your city is interested in exploring a more formal and comprehensive community survey, you can contact the Strong Cities North American Regional Hub help desk at [email protected] for consultation on questionnaire development and recommendations for research or other partners with experience designing and implementing these types of surveys.

Analysing the Information

What are the city’s needs and vulnerabilities?

With the information gathered above, the city should be able to put together a picture of its threats and vulnerabilities, thereby identifying needs. These can be ascertained by using the information to answer the following questions:

• Are certain types of hate/extremism or other threats to social cohesion more prevalent?
• Are some communities more targeted than others? 
• What are the social, health, educational, occupational, governance, cultural, and political factors that may drive hate, extremism, and polarisation in communities within the city?
• Are certain segments of the population (e.g. by age, gender, neighbourhood, etc.) in need of bolstered protective factors?
• What are the existing barriers for local governments carrying out prevention efforts? (e.g. limited national-state-local cooperation, highly-securitised approaches, deficits in policy, consultation, outreach, and/or trust)
• How are the perceived drivers of hate and extremism, and barriers to prevention, similar or distinct in communities within the city, and why?
• Is there a difference between evidenced and perceived risks? Why could that difference exist?
• Are particular geographic areas of the city more affected than others?
• How does the local landscape compare to the national landscape? How does it compare to other areas in the state, county, or region?

What are the city’s strengths, and critically, what are the gaps?

Reviewing the protective factors present in the population, along with the stakeholder directory and the other assets listed, the city should now have a firm understanding of its strengths, tools, and programmes that can be leveraged for the prevention of hate and extremism that can lead to violence. Some of those assets might already be actively applied to prevention, and some might be adapted to address prevention.

By understanding its needs and vulnerabilities on the one hand, and present protective factors and current assets on the other, a city can determine any remaining gaps, such as:

• Programmes in specific tiers of prevention (primary, secondary, tertiary)
• Programmes supporting specific communities or specific social services
• Staff resources
• Coordination (inter-agency, inter-governmental, public-private, etc.)
• Financial / budget resources
• Available expertise to draw on

With the understanding of needs, vulnerabilities, protective factors, assets, and gaps, a city can now begin developing a local prevention framework that is designed to address these issues.