Started in May 2018, the Community Intervention Team (CIT) was formed in Wilmington, Delaware. CIT is a local grassroots organization that was established to build strong community relationships, promote positive youth development and engage with the community as a whole in the City of
Wilmington. With many Wilmington neighborhoods suffering from gun violence, CIT works from the approach that violence should be confronted and addressed as a public health epidemic. In other words, the best way to stop the spread of violence is to isolate it, confront it and manage it at its source. CIT seeks to engage the community in both the prevention and intervention of violence, to build positive community relationships and to address the root causes of these negative altercations through three main areas: a) community engagement, b) changing community norms and c) positive youth development.