TAG in Action: Youth ALIVE! Caught in the Crossfire 

As part of its national call to action, Adolescent Health: Think, Act, Grow® (TAG), the Office 

of Adolescent Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has identified a 

number of successful strategies for improving adolescent health throughout the country.

The Goal The Caught in the Crossfire program meets young victims of violence at their hospital 

bedsides in order to prevent retaliatory violence, offer practical help, and provide a path 

toward safety and healing. 

The Game 

Plan

Caught in the Crossfire (CiC) is a hospital-based violence intervention program based in 

Oakland, California. The nonprofit organization, Youth ALIVE!, delivers CiC as part of an 

array of violence prevention, intervention, and healing programs. Youth ALIVE! was founded 

on the belief that youth from the city’s most violent neighborhoods have the power to 

change things for the better. The CiC program was created in the early 1990’s by a young 

man, Sherman Spears, who was himself violently injured. Sherman realized that while the 

hospital was equipped to care for his physical wounds, it was not equipped to address the 

emotional wounds that he and his family experienced. Sherman also understood that 

becoming a victim of violence created a “teachable moment,” a time that youth are 

particularly open to learning and making positive changes.

Building on these teachable moments, CiC’s trained intervention specialists and case 

managers to work with young victims to address both their immediate need for violence 

intervention and ongoing service needs as they recover. The first of its kind, CiC has been 

replicated across the country. In 2009, Youth ALIVE! and its partners established the 

National Network of Hospital-based Violence Intervention Programs in order to share 

knowledge, promote best practices, and collaborate on research. Over the years, the 

evidence supporting hospital-based violence intervention programs (HVIPs) has grown. 

Evaluations of CiC and other HVIPs have demonstrated an array of cost-saving outcomes 

including reduced likelihood of reinjury or readmittance to a hospital, and reduced future 

involvement with the criminal justice system. 

The 

Winning 

Plays

Anne Marks, Executive Director of Youth ALIVE! shared that, “Caught in the Crossfire, and all 

of our Youth ALIVE! programs, are based on the lived experiences of youth. We start there 

and then we hold ourselves accountable for outcomes. It’s important that our staff come 

from the community we serve. It means our CiC interventionists can offer victims 

understanding while also providing them with practical approaches to addressing their

physical and emotional safety. Trauma is a contagion. Without intervention, 44 percent of 

people who get shot will be shot again in five years. We recognize that we need to provide

young victims with the space, time, and support to heal.“

Learn 

More

Youth ALIVE!

http://www.youthalive.org

National Network of Hospital-based 

Violence Prevention Programs

http://nnhvip.org

HHS Office of Adolescent Health | Website: http://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/TAG Twitter: @TeenHealthGov Email: TAGTEAM@hhs.gov