Kansas City, Mo. ? Street violence is a public health issue and needs a preventive approach, city leaders said in announcing a program aimed at matching survivors of violence with those now suffering from it – or likely to be.

So instead of investigating assaults and killings, workers in the Aim4Peace program will be on the streets trying to prevent them.

“I feel very strongly that this program can have a positive impact in the reduction of homicides and violent crimes,” said Maj. Anthony Ell, commander of the Kansas City Police Department’s Violent Crimes Division.

Over the past decade, street violence has caused an average of 98 deaths a year in Kansas City.

A disproportionate share of those are in the urban core, in the city’s East Patrol zone. That’s where the program, funded by $600,000 from the city and modeled on similar efforts in Oakland, Calif., and Chicago, will focus its efforts.

“We feel it has great promise,” said Tracie McClendon, justice program coordinator in the city manager’s office.

The city, which will launch Aim4Peace in October, is looking for outreach workers who have experienced violent street life. They will work to match victims with community employment and life skills resources – and to discourage any impulses to return violence for violence.

They also will work to establish relationships with those at risk for either committing or being victimized by violent crime, to promote nonviolent conflict resolution.

“They will be seeking out those not being reached through the faith-based, home or educational communities,” Ell said.

If the program is successful in the target area, he said, additional money would be sought to expand it.

Aim4Peace is largely modeled on the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention, founded by an epidemiologist in 1995.

Police statistics there show significant decreases in violent crime in neighborhoods where the program has been introduced.

Candice Kane, the Chicago project’s chief operating officer, said the program provides something else beyond education: hope.

“Hope provides motivation for folks to do something different with their lives,” she said.