Two agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) showed up at the Church Hill Road headquarters of Sandy Hook Promise (SHP) April 8 — and it was cause for celebration.

Special Agents Brian Turner and Robert Fuller came up from the FBI’s New Haven Field Office for a brief ceremony honoring the national nonprofit and its founders, Nicole Hockley and Mark Barden, who co-founded the violence prevention organization after each lost a child during the Sandy Hook shooting on December 14, 2012.

The pair were honored with the regional 2019 FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award (DCLA) ahead of a national presentation they will attend in Washington, DC, on May 3. The FBI presents the DCLA to organizations and community leaders who have demonstrated outstanding contributions to their communities in the prevention of crime and violence.

SHP is being honored for its work in training more than 6.5 million youths and adults nationwide in its proven Know the Signs programs that focus on prevention to help end the epidemic of gun violence by identifying at-risk behavior and intervening to get help before a tragedy can occur.

Through these no-cost programs, SHP has averted multiple school shooting plots, teen suicides, and countless other acts of violence, including one recently in Seymour.

Middle school students in that Naugatuck Valley community helped avert potential violence in their school by standing up to “say something” when they saw disconcerting information and behaviors coming from one of their peers just weeks after participating in awareness training during SHP’s annual Say Something Week.

The Community Leadership Award was formally created in 1990 to honor individuals and organizations for their efforts in combating crime, terrorism, and violence in America.

The New Haven Field Office’s 2019 award was presented as SHP launched its annual National Youth Violence Prevention Week, which raises awareness of effective strategies to prevent youth violence.

Through various activities throughout the week, students across the nation and beyond learn about the positive role young people can have in making their schools and communities safer.

Activities this week raise awareness and educate youth on effective strategies to prevent violence before it occurs, as well as how to spot the signs of self-harm, decrease bullying and social isolation, and create a more connected school environment and community.

National Youth Violence Prevention Week, April 8-14, is an invention of the SAVE Promise Club, a youth-led affiliate of SHP. Activities throughout the week include themed days and activities that students can easily implement and roll out across their school.

The goal is to teach youth and teens how to be “upstanders,” especially following a violent year in schools last year. According to research published by the Center for Homeland Defense, 2018 had the highest incidents of K-12 school shootings since 1970.

Gun violence has steadily increased since 2011, with 2018 seeing more than twice the number of incidents in any given year, according to SHP.

SAVE (Students Against Violence Everywhere) is also hosting its annual SAVE Promise Club Youth Summit in North Carolina on Saturday, April 13.

Mei-Ling Ho-Shing, a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student and activist; and Mark’s daughter Natalie Barden, a teen activist who lost her first-grade brother in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, will speak at the event.

More than 1,000 student leaders and their school advisors from across the country are confirmed to attend the event that will showcase successful practices in preventing violence as well as train participants in effective ways to make their schools and communities safer.

Learn more about National Youth Violence Prevention Week by clicking HERE.