An Aurora program to combat youth violence was awarded a federal grant for almost $2 million, which will go toward outreach and support.

Aurora’s SAVE program, which stands for Standing Against Violence Every Day, is a violence reduction program started in 2023. The program is aimed at groups with high risk for violence, specifically targeting ages 13-to-25.

SAVE is a collaboration between Aurora’s Youth Violence Prevention Program, Aurora Police Department and community partners.

Aurora officials announced in a news release Thursday that the program was awarded a grant of almost $2 million from the Department of Justice’s Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative.

The initiative creates an investment opportunity for community-based violence intervention programs like SAVE, according to a city news release.

Money from the grant will go toward community support and victim services, help with content creation and marketing, fund a crime analyst and program administrator and support SAVE’s research partners at the University of Colorado Boulder, according to the release.

The money will support SAVE for the next three years, during which SAVE leaders plan to build out the Group Violence Intervention strategy and measure the success of that strategy.

Group Violence Intervention is a strategy from the National Network of Safe Communities, which has implemented successful violence reduction strategies in over 60 cities.

Lisa Battan, the Aurora SAVE program manager, said program leaders meet with youth they identify as at-risk of violence and offer services based on the person and their family’s needs.

“We know that focusing only on incarceration and arrest is not the answer,” Captain Mike Hanifin, the law enforcement lead for SAVE, said in the release. “It is our goal to try to get ahead of it and do intervention on the front end because this strategy is all about the double message of empathy, we’ll help you if you let us; and accountability, we’ll stop you if you make us.”

In Aurora, group-involved non-fatal and fatal shootings statistics are high per capita and have been increasing over past years, according to the release. The program’s mission is to reduce these incidents.

Since its inception, SAVE has contacted 90 recipients, who get custom notifications with contacts for service access. The average age of recipients is 17-to-18.

The announcement comes less than a week after Aurora police shot and killed an 18-year-old who “profusely” beat his mother and then shot at a group of officers attempting to diffuse the situation, according to Police Chief Todd Chamberlain in a news conference Monday.

Aurora Councilmember Angela Lawson frequently hears from her constituents that youth violence is a major concern in the community, she said in the release.

“Public safety is still a top priority for our City Council,” she said. “I am elated that we have been able to secure additional funding to move us forward, and we need everybody — law enforcement, service providers and community partners — on board to make this work.”

More information about SAVE is available at AuroraGov.org/SAVE.