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Multidisciplinary Gang Intervention Teams

 by Michelle Arciaga

Introduction

Gang membership is again on the rise in many communities and with it, corresponding levels of 

crime and violence. Professionals dealing with gangs are 

seeking alternatives to traditional “hook ’em and book 

’em” approaches. Some communities are implementing 

multidisciplinary teams to intervene with gang members 

and implement targeted suppression strategies. These 

teams involve agency personnel from different fields who 

share information, develop individualized intervention 

plans for gang-involved youth and young adults, and 

collaborate on a variety of strategies. These teams 

can increase the effectiveness of individual agency 

efforts, reduce duplication of services, increase access 

to needed services, and ensure that gang members are 

held accountable for their actions.

This bulletin overviews lessons learned during the 

implementation of team-based approaches such as the 

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s 

Comprehensive Gang Model and Gang Reduction 

Program in cities around the United States.

Goals of Team-Based

Gang Intervention

At the core of team-based intervention are the following 

key issues:

•	 Each gang member is a unique individual who

joined the gang for unique reasons and who 

needs an individualized response.

•	 Each gang member affects (and is affected by)

multiple domains such as family, neighborhood, 

school, and peers.

•	 Gang members often experience uncoordinated

multiple-agency involvement and are high-end 

users of services.

•	 Gang members frequently encounter barriers to

needed services.

These fundamental issues about gang intervention are 

research-based and underlie the majority of the work 

performed in team-based intervention. In general, 

research suggests that a relatively small number of 

gang members are responsible for the majority of gangrelated crime and violence in the community. In most 

cases, this core group of gang members becomes the 

focus of the team’s efforts. Because gang members 

often receive services simultaneously from multiple 

agencies, the team facilitates information-sharing and 

collaboration among these agencies. In many instances, 

gang members have had negative experiences dealing

with the very agencies that are designed to offer 

assistance. The team-based approach helps ensure that 

all agencies working with these clients have a common 

goal and shared strategies for each client.

Short-term goals for the team include:

•	 Creating individualized case management plans

for gang members participating in the program.

•	 Engaging gang members in direct services to

address their specific needs.

•	 Working together to dismantle or surmount

barriers to crucial services.

•	 Holding gang members accountable for negative

behaviors.

The team deals with gang-involved clients as individuals, 

addressing their individual circumstances and sharing 

information across professional boundaries. The team 

identifies each client’s specific goals to hook the client 

into receiving services, while simultaneously addressing 

social deficits and negative behaviors on which the 

client may be reluctant to work. Additionally, the team 

works to identify and eliminate barriers that might keep 

the client from accessing needed services.

Long-term goals for the team include:

•	 Assisting gang members in transitioning out of

the gang lifestyle.

•	 Improving the effectiveness of agencies serving

gang-involved clients.

•	 Reducing overall gang-related crime in the

community.

This team approach helps gang-involved clients leave 

gangs and facilitates changes within the community. As 

a result of increased collaboration and shared information 

from the team process, participating agencies can 

improve their effectiveness and avoid duplication of 

services. But the team also seeks to achieve a much 

No. 3 August 2007

NYGC Bulletin

®
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larger goal. By identifying and providing concentrated 

services to those within the gang culture, the team 

seeks to improve the quality of life for all residents of 

the community, thus reducing gang crime and improving 

community safety. Ultimately, the goal is to create 

systemic and communitywide change that will reduce 

overall gang involvement and criminality.

Laying the Foundation

The first step in creating the infrastructure for the 

team is to identify agencies that are involved in 

serving or interacting with gang members and gain 

their participation. These agencies include law 

enforcement, education/schools, probation and/

or parole officials, the courts (juvenile and adult),

prosecutors, social service agencies, youth-serving 

agencies, and grassroots community agencies. Each

of these partners plays a crucial role in working with 

gang-involved clients. Without their participation, the

team’s ability to address gang-involved clients will be 

hampered. The leaders of these key agencies must be 

convened to ascertain their willingness to assign staff 

members to the multidisciplinary team. The leaders 

should also remain involved in a policy-making capacity 

as the “executive committee.” Through memoranda

of understanding, they may wish to formally commit 

in writing to their roles, along with the types of 

participation they will provide. 

Once the key agencies have convened to create the 

multidisciplinary team, they must come to consensus 

on the team’s planned goals and mission. A logical 

starting point is to engage in some type of assessment 

to determine the level, extent, and impact of gangs

in the community. Because gang members tend to 

have a wide range of impacts at home, in school, in 

the neighborhood, and with peers, it is important to 

ensure that issues that may be connected to gang 

involvement in the community are identified. These 

might include language barriers, a history of low 

educational attainment in the community, a high 

percentage of single-parent homes, two-parent homes 

made up of the working poor, a high level of substance 

abuse, availability of drugs and weapons, and many 

other possible issues. It is recommended that prior to 

implementing gang programs, communities conduct 

a comprehensive assessment of local gang problems. 

An excellent guide for this process is “Addressing

Community Gang Problems,” from the National Youth 

Gang Center online at http://www.iir.com/nygc/acgp/

default.htm.

The executive committee should develop goals for the

team to accomplish and, based on these goals, develop 

criteria for the types of clients that will be served by 

the team. These criteria should be used to screen and 

target gang members to receive services. A guide to 

planning for and implementing this team approach, 

including program goals and screening criteria, can 

be found in “Planning for Implementation,” from the 

National Youth Gang Center online at http://www.iir.

com/nygc/acgp/implementation.htm.

Sample screening criteria might include:

•	 Age/race/ethnicity

•	 Gender

•	 Social factors (gang members from the same

family, history of school problems, etc.)

•	 Threshold level of criminal history

•	 Specific gang affiliation

•	 Place of residence

For instance, the target population for this team-based 

approach might be 15- to 24-year-olds, residing in a 

particular section of town, affiliated with X, Y, or Z 

gangs, with a history of weapons possession. 

To ensure that the team’s efforts accomplish the greatest 

effect, the team should strictly adhere to these criteria, 

and ongoing crime and client data should be collected 

and analyzed to determine whether adjustments should 

be made to the screening criteria.

Once the goals and criteria for the team have been 

established, the executive committee can begin to

create the team itself.

Structuring the 

Multidisciplinary Team

Once the foundation for the team has been laid, it 

is important that key agencies begin appointing 

representatives to serve on the team and meet 

on a regular basis (weekly or biweekly). These

representatives need to serve on the team long enough to 

cement relationships (i.e., a minimum of two years) and

to enable individual representatives to gain expertise

in working together. A typical multidisciplinary team 

is illustrated below:
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Selecting Team Members

Ideally, key agencies should select team members 

who:

•	 Have experience in working with high-risk and

gang-involved youth. This is one of the most 

important criteria in selecting team members. 

The emphasis for the team (as discussed in this

bulletin) is on active gang members. Potential

team members who would prefer to work with 

youth representing little or no risk are probably 

not appropriate.

•	 Are willing, interested, and able to work within

a team setting.

•	 Are open to new ways of collaborating and

interacting with different disciplines to achieve 

a common mission. 

•	 Are committed to providing intervention options

to youth and to holding youth accountable for 

negative and/or dangerous behaviors.

Because of the key roles they play, personnel assigned 

from law enforcement and outreach agencies must 

have specific qualifications. Law enforcement team 

members should: 

•	 Be familiar with gang dynamics and activities in

the target area.

•	 Have a plan to interact and maintain liaison with

other police department units/members who 

interact with gang members or their families.

•	 Be willing to work with other disciplines and

respect what each discipline brings to the 

team’s activities with clients.

•	 Understand and value intervention efforts;

complementary role with suppression.

•	 Understand the long-term benefits of

collaborative teamwork.

If outreach workers are utilized on the team, they 

should:

•	 Be familiar with the target population. Ideally,

the outreach worker(s) will share a common

ethnicity with clients. If the majority of clients 

are likely to have language barriers (based on

assessment data), the outreach worker(s) should

be bilingual.

•	 Be familiar with the community/neighborhoods

targeted for team-based gang intervention.

•	 Be comfortable working with gang members

and communicating with them in uncontrolled 

settings in the community.

•	 Be willing to serve as role models for clients,

modeling prosocial behaviors in their own lives 

and being law-abiding and ethical.

•	 Demonstrate maturity and common sense, since

they will be thrust into potentially dangerous 

and explosive situations.

•	 Be willing to work with the team to address and

hold clients accountable for negative behaviors 

through verbal counseling and by supporting 

other agency sanctions.

•	 Always share information when it involves a

possible threat to the safety of the client, the 

community, or other team members. 

It is extremely important that reputable individuals and

agencies serve in the outreach role. These individuals 

must have no current gang ties, current gang involvement, 

or other types of recent criminal involvement.

Formalize Information-Sharing Protocols

Prior to accepting clients, the team members must 

formalize protocols for information sharing at the team 

level. Because specific agency staff may be restricted in 

the types of information they can share, it is important 

that team members know and understand these limits. 

In some cases, the executive committee may require

team members to sign confidentiality waivers detailing 

the types of information that will be shared, along with 

the ways that confidential client information will be 

safeguarded. These parameters can also be set through 

a memorandum of understanding determined at the 

executive committee level.

First Steps With Clients

Referral/Screening

As discussed earlier, the screening criteria are set by 

the executive committee, based on the goals of the

key agencies. When the team is getting started, it

is important that team members create a protocol for 

screening and assessing new clients. Which agencies

will be making referrals? Will a referral form be created?

If so, what client information will it include? How will

referring agencies be made aware of the screening 

criteria? How willthe team utilize the screening criteria

in selecting appropriate clients? It is recommended 

that referring agencies present information about 

prospective clients to the team, outlining how each 

client meets the screening criteria. The team members 

can then come to consensus about whether a client is 

suitable for the program.

Client Consent

Because the information shared across agency 

boundaries in this type of team-based intervention 

approach may be sensitive and potentially damaging 

to a client, it is important for team members to ensure 

that they can legally serve the client. The client himself 

(if he is of age), his parent/guardian, and/or a stateappointed legal guardian must consent to the sharing of 

the client’s information and to the provision of services 

by the team.
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Needs Assessment

Finally, someone within the team must take responsibility 

for assessing the client’s needs before the team develops 

a case management plan and then for reporting on the 

client’s needs to the group. The following factors need 

to be assessed before delivering services to the client:

•	 The client’s future goals, abilities, talents, and

desires.

•	 Family situation and structure.

•	 Gang involvement of family members.

•	 Other family issues that may affect the client’s

gang involvement.

•	 Criminal history.

•	 Gang history (and gang affiliation).

•	 School history, including special issues such as

learning disabilities or a history of behavioral 

problems.

•	 Gang climate in the client’s neighborhood.

•	 Substance abuse or mental health issues.

•	 History of abuse or neglect.

•	 Client’s employment history and skill levels.

•	 Special circumstances, such as a client who is a

teen parent.

•	 Agencies that are currently serving the client.

•	 Possible safety issues involving the client.

•	 Current needs assessments from any of the team

agencies.

•	 Court requirements such as community service

hours and restitution.

Some of these factors may have played a role in the 

client’s decision to join a gang and may become an 

impetus that can motivate or assist him in transitioning 

out of gangs. It is important that the team focus on each 

of these areas, as needed, when developing a plan to 

intervene with the client.

Case Management 

of Gang-Involved Client 

The client has been identified as appropriate for services 

and has consented to participate. A needs assessment 

has been conducted. What should the team do next?

Creating an Intervention Plan

The client’s case information from the needs assessment 

is shared with team members during regularly scheduled 

meetings. The team members discuss possible methods 

of addressing the client’s core needs and then come to 

consensus on the prioritization of these efforts. 

Areas to consider:

•	 Is the family supportive of the youth’s efforts to

change, or are they contributing to the client’s 

difficulties? Are the siblings or parents ganginvolved? What actions are needed from the

family? What support services may be required

to assist the family in addressing the youth’s 

gang involvement and any related issues?

•	 Is the client currently attending school? What

type of educational setting is most appropriate 

for this client? What educational services are

available in the area? What are possible pros

and cons of each of these options? Which

activities will the team pursue with this client?

•	 Does the client have untreated substance

abuse or mental health issues? What services

does the client need? What methods can be

used to motivate the client to participate in 

programming?

•	 Is the client court-involved? Does he have

pending charges? Does he have gang-specific 

conditions of probation or parole? Could some 

aspects of the intervention plan be courtordered? What role can probation or parole play

in holding the client accountable for following 

through with intervention activities? What role

can the team play in helping the client comply 

with court-ordered requirements?

•	 Is the client engaged in ongoing criminal

activity? Does he pose a threat to the 

community? How will this be addressed?

•	 Does the client wish to seek employment? 

If so, what type? Does the client have any 

unaddressed issues that will hinder work 

success? What will the team do to address

employment prospects for the client?

The intervention plan should address all relevant issues, 

be documented, and be reviewed and/or updated on a 

regular basis (every 30 to 90 days depending upon the

client’s situation).

Take into account the client’s current capacity

When creating an individualized case management

plan, the team should take the client’s current capacity 

into consideration and address issues on a prioritized, 

step-by-step basis that proceeds in a logical fashion. 

For instance, if the client has serious substance abuse 

issues but states that one of his priorities is to gain 

employment, the team must work with the client’s drug 

abuse before placing him in a job. Similarly, if the youth 

has behavioral issues that have kept him chronically in 

trouble at school, the team must address these issues 

before mainstreaming the client into a school setting. 

Safety must be the top priority. If the client is engaged 

in ongoing dangerous criminal activity, the focus of the 

team must shift to suppression, and the team’s law 

enforcement members should take the lead in addressing 
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the client’s activities. It is to no one’s benefit, including 

the client’s, to leave a client at large in the community 

if he poses a threat to himself and others.

Assign responsibility for follow-up to members 

of the team

One of the key benefits of the team-based approach to 

intervention is that it divides the caseload of clients 

who are often heavy consumers of services and heavily 

involved in the criminal justice system, and who have 

frequent contacts with law enforcement. Each team

member plays a specific role in ensuring that the client 

is able to access services through the agency and that 

the team is kept apprised of the client’s progress (or

lack thereof). For instance, school representatives

might ensure that the client is assessed for learning 

disabilities if team members suspect a problem. The 

school representatives are also responsible for reporting 

to the team on the client’s progress, attendance, and 

any behavioral issues. The same holds true for other 

agencies. Law enforcement team members should 

share information on gang activity and trends in the 

community, as well as criminal activities of targeted 

clients. Law enforcement officers also interact with 

clients in the community, not only to arrest them for 

criminal offenses and to enforce criminal statutes but 

also to provide positive feedback when possible.

Team members must be prepared to play multiple 

roles. They must encourage the client’s positive efforts 

while simultaneously holding the client accountable for 

negative behaviors and protecting the community and 

the client himself from harm. They must share vital 

information with agencies that are affected by both the 

client’s positive progress and negative behaviors.

Specific Roles Played

by Team Members

Each member of the team brings to the table specific

skills, access to information, resources for clients, and 

other professional attributes. The following components 

of a team-based gang intervention reflect the roles team 

members play. 

Education

•	 Ensure client access to educational services.

•	 Perform educational evaluations as needed.

•	 Create individual educational plans as mandated

by the district.

•	 Provide feedback on intervention plans.

•	 Make recommendations for appropriate

educational placements.

•	 Leverage services provided by schools, including

counseling or mental health, as needed.

•	 Provide the team with information on clients’

performance, attendance, and behavior.

•	 Hold clients accountable to required standards

of behavior in the school setting.

•	 Facilitate school access by outreach workers.

Law Enforcement

•	 Report to the team on gang climate and trends

affecting the area and/or clients being served.

•	 Provide input on issues that may affect

intervention with clients (e.g., safety risk,

association with known gang members, 

suspected drug-trafficking, witness/victim/

perpetrator in a violent crime).

•	 Provide information on criminal involvement by

current clients.

•	 Brief the team on safety issues.

•	 Share information with key partners regarding

gang incidents that may spawn retaliations or 

other safety risks.

•	 Hold clients accountable in the community,

assessing appropriate responses depending on 

the level and severity of each client’s behavior.

•	 Provide clients with positive feedback regarding

their positive efforts. 

Probation/Parole

•	 Recommend/enforce conditions of probation that

take clients’ gang affiliations into consideration.

•	 Access services available through the justice

system to address clients’ needs (e.g., substance

abuse assessment and treatment).

•	 Provide feedback on intervention plans.

•	 Work in conjunction with law enforcement

to conduct home visits and/or hold clients 

accountable to the conditions of probation/parole.

•	 Share information on each client’s court status

with the rest of the team.

•	 Hold clients accountable for accomplishing

educational/employment goals.

Social Services

•	 Provide a link to services for program clients.

•	 Conduct assessments (mental health/substance

abuse) as needed.

•	 Provide feedback on intervention plans.

•	 Access services to address family issues

(counseling, crisis management, abuse/neglect

issues, and parental skills training).

•	 Hold clients accountable for completing services.

•	 Share information on clients’ progress with the

team.
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Outreach

In some cases, team-based gang intervention 

approaches include an outreach component. This role 

may be played by a contracting agency that is already 

working at the grassroots level in the community or by 

outreach personnel working for one of the key agencies. 

The goal of outreach is to identify and engage clients 

who may be difficult for mainstream organizations to 

reach. Outreach workers in this type of team-based 

approach:

•	 Work directly with clients in gang-intensive

settings to assist them in identifying and 

accomplishing goals.

•	 Provide further information on the gang

climate in affected neighborhoods and causal 

relationships/factors.

•	 Recruit gang-involved individuals.

•	 Encourage prosocial behavior.

•	 Assist program clients in accessing services.

•	 Report to the team on each client’s progress,

interests, and goals.

•	 Provide feedback on intervention plans.

Information-Sharing Protocols

Information is shared within the team for specific reasons. 

First, safety is paramount. All participating team 

members have an obligation to share information when 

there is a risk of harm to clients, other team members, or 

community members. This information should be shared 

with the knowledge that it will be acted on by team 

members to protect public safety. Furthermore, clients 

in these programs must be briefed so they understand 

that team members have an obligation to report certain 

types of information. For example, if a team member

from a social services agency receives information 

from a client that members of that client’s gang plan to 

shoot a rival gang, the team member needs to share this 

information with the team. However, law enforcement

team members who receive this information must protect 

the other team members and the clients. Because law 

enforcement team members may receive information 

from grassroots agency personnel or outreach workers, 

they also must avoid jeopardizing the safety of these 

workers. Thus, great care should be taken in dealing 

with such scenarios.

Team members also should understand that information 

about clients is shared to help clients, not to penalize 

them. Potentially damaging or embarrassing information 

about a client must be closely guarded. For instance, 

a school representative who hears information about 

a client’s family situation should not reveal this 

information to others at the school who have no reason 

to receive this information. A school should not use 

information about a client’s gang involvement to justify 

expelling or excluding the client from school. 

Team-based gang intervention personnel must walk a 

fine line between revealing information that may pose a 

safety risk to clients, the community as a whole, and other 

team members, and protecting information that might 

handicap a client in his efforts to change his lifestyle. 

Team members also need to be trained in mandatory 

reporting issues specific to their states or regions.

New members of the intervention team must be briefed 

prior to serving on the team on the requirements and 

expectations of other team members. The team may

wish to create confidentiality agreements that commit 

each team member to protecting client information.

Adapting the 

Team-Based Approach

Team-based gang intervention was originally developed 

to serve communities heavily affected by gangs and 

gang-related violence. This approach seems to be 

most effective if it targets a manageably sized segment 

of a community with a population of no more than 

60,000–80,000. Because ofthe concentrated, manpowerintensive nature of the services provided by the team, 

it is generally cost-prohibitive to use this approach for 

a low-level gang problem.

However, an intervention team can be implemented

with minimal additional funds outside an existing

agency budget by identifying agencies with personnel 

who are already serving gang-involved clients. In many 

cases, communities that have implemented a teambased intervention approach have found that such 

personnel are especially effective in working with these 

clients and are able to create a noticeable impact.

The team-based approach can also be implemented 

on a smaller scale in, for instance, a school setting, 

using the same model: conducting an assessment, 

developing screening criteria, and convening personnel 

from agencies that are already serving students who 

attend the school. In this case, personnel might meet 

biweekly to discuss the clients’ progress and to develop 

strategies to address their individual needs. 

Further, the team-based intervention approach lends 

itself to targeted prevention efforts, where prospective 

clients are screened on the basis of risk factors related 

to gang-joining (especially cumulative risk factors

and risk factors in multiple domains) and targeted for

intensive team-based case management. Only the 

required personnel participating in the team would 

change;the concept would remain essentially the same.

Again, the key is to identify clients who closely fit the 

mission of the group, whether the goal is to increase 

school safety or to prevent gang-joining among highly 

at-risk youths. n

Michelle Arciaga is a Senior Research Associate with the 

National Youth Gang CenterTM, which is operated for the 

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention by the 

Institute for Intergovernmental Research®.
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Resources

Addressing Community Gang Problems: 

http://www.iir.com/nygc/acgp/

A Comprehensive Approach to Youth Gangs:

http://www.iir.com/nygc/PublicationLinks.

htm#CAYG

The Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach

to Gang Prevention, Intervention, and 

Suppression: http://www.ncjrs.gov/html/

ojjdp/summary_2000_8/comprehensive.

html#communitywidePrograms

Program Contacts

Errika Fearbry Jones, Director, Pittsburgh Youth

Intervention Project, Pittsburgh Public Schools, 

Room 424, 341 South Bellefield Avenue,

Pittsburgh, PA 15214, (412) 622-3932.

Dolores Mendiola, Project Coordinator, 

Houston Gang-Free Schools Project,

Houston Mayor’s Anti-Gang Office,

900 Bagby, Houston, TX 77002, (713) 437-6296.

Renee Parker, Project Coordinator, Project MPACT, 

Miami-Dade County School District Police Department, 

10650 Northwest 42nd Avenue, Miami, FL 33054,

(305) 621-4598.

Ray Luick, Director of Criminal Justice Programs, 

Wisconsin Office of Justice Assistance, Suite 610,

131 West Wilson Street, Madison, WI 53702,

(608) 266-7282.

Mildred Martinez, Project Coordinator, Los Angeles 

Gang Reduction Project, Office of the Mayor, 

Homeland Security and Public Safety,

200 North Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012,

(213) 978-0686.

Laura Kallus, Project Coordinator, 

North Miami Beach Gang Reduction Project, 

Island Place Apartments, 1541 Northeast 167 Street,

North Miami Beach, FL 33162, (305) 956-2524,

Extension 2243.

Fritz Knapp, Project Coordinator, 

Richmond Gang Reduction Project, Office of the 

Attorney General of Virginia, 900 East Main Street,

Richmond, VA 23219, (804) 786-8192.

This bulletin was prepared under Cooperative Agreement 2006-JV-FX-K002 with the Institute for

Intergovernmental Research from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Points of view or opinions expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not

necessarily represent the official position or policies of OJJDP or the U.S. Department of Justice.