COLUMBIA, S.C. — Columbia's Office of Violent Crime Prevention held its first community forum on Saturday to understand what is behind violence among young adults in the city.
"I want them to know they still have a voice, and if they walk through, justice shall prevail," Christine Terry, a grandparent of four, said.
Terry and many other parents and young adults gathered at Hyatt Park for a community forum hosted by the city's Office of Violent Crime Prevention.
In a 90-day report, the office listed the high-risk factors of owning a gun, being recently released from prison, and being socially connected to violence between the ages of 14 and 35.
The first community forum targeted the age group by speaking with parents and teens.
"I'm really excited about it because this has been in the works for over a year," Columbia City Council member Tina Herbert said. "And we now have the director over the office."
She said this was more about hearing from the youth to help bring forward solutions.
"The key thing that we wanted to have an opportunity to do is actually hear from the young adults," Herbert said. "We've been in enough meetings where we are hearing adults about the problem, but this is an opportunity to hear directly from the kids."
Parents participated in separate sessions discussing concerns, while community leaders heard from and listened to youth about what they'd like to see change. Leaders also introduced activities like writing poems about what justice means to understand the frustrations of young adults. As people learned from conversations at the event, Trevon Fordham, director of the Office of Violent Crime Prevention, applied this information to the next steps.
"Got some licensed counselors and therapy groups that are in the community. We've got some mentoring groups, we've got some a lot of different partners, so we'll talk about next steps," Fordham said. That's what's going to be next: continue the partnerships, continue having events and programs like this, and really just be involved in the community. That's going to be important is getting community buy-in."
This is the first event the office has held since being established.