The Prevention Practitioners Network (PPN) is a national network of over 1,600 interdisciplinary professionals dedicated to using public health approaches to prevent hate-fueled violence. PPN welcomes all prevention professionals, including those focused on raising awareness, bolstering youth resilience, training bystanders, and assessing and intervening with individuals who may be at risk of violence.
Since March 2025, the PPN has added 215 new members to its network and 40 directory profiles to the Reach Out Resource Hub. The Network has also updated eight practice guides, which multidisciplinary teams across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have used as they stand up to prevent targeted violence and terrorism. It also published a first-of-its-kind ethics framework for preventing targeted violence that “provides an ethical grounding in the targeted violence prevention space so that professions across multiple disciplines share a common language,” according to Dr. James Marley, chair of the PPN Ethics Committee and Associate Professor at Loyola University’s School of Social Work.
What We Do
- Conduct capacity-building workshops on topics such as building multidisciplinary teams, information sharing, and behavioral assessment and management
- Publish free practice guides for interdisciplinary professionals
- Host the Reach Out Resource Hub, a national directory of prevention resources and mental and behavioral health clinicians willing to accept referrals
- Raise public awareness through national bystander campaigns
- Facilitate case consultations for clinicians with complex cases
- Share the latest research
Upcoming Training
Online Nihilism, Real-World Violence: What Frontline Professionals Need to Know
Tuesday, April 7, 2026
12:00 PM ET / 9:00AM PT
Zoom meeting
This workshop equips U.S.-based practitioners with the knowledge and tools to address the emerging threat of online nihilistic violence networks such as 764, the Com, and the True Crime Community. These loosely organized groups exploit gaming platforms, social media, and chat forums to groom and radicalize teens and minors, often using coercion, sextortion, and encouragement of self-harm and violence. Participants will learn how to recognize warning signs, understand pathways into these networks, and intervene with individuals who are at risk or already involved. The training emphasizes treatment and management strategies, including family engagement, addressing vulnerabilities such as suicidality and eating disorders, and working with mandatory or court-ordered clients. The workshop is designed for mental and behavioral health professionals, law enforcement, educators, and members of the legal system, and all practitioners committed to preventing targeted violence are encouraged to attend.
Learn more and register today.
Preventing Targeted Violence through a Public Health Approach
Tuesday, April 28, 2026
12:00 PM ET / 9:00AM PT
Zoom meeting
Dating back at least to 2016, when the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a workshop on the topic, public health officials have played a growing role in preventing targeted violence. The public health model for targeted violence prevention includes primordial prevention, which is focused on shaping conditions and social patterns at the population level, as well as primary, secondary, and tertiary interventions. The latter three tiers involve interventions to promote protective factors and engage with “at-risk” individuals.
Drawing from decades of violence prevention research, this presentation will focus on how public health officials can bolster prevention by strengthening protective factors for individuals who believe violence is justified. Consequently, panelists will discuss policy and programmatic interventions to strengthen social cohesion, bolster resilience, and build community trust. Practitioners who have implemented public-health informed prevention programs will outline evidence-informed practices as it relates to deploying targeted violence prevention programs at the local level.
Registration opening soon.
Aligning Research to Practice: Research Gaps to Inform Prevention
Tuesday, June 30, 2026
12:00 PM ET / 9:00 AM PT
Zoom meeting
This workshop equips U.S.-based practitioners with the knowledge and tools to address the emerging threat of online nihilistic violence networks such as 764, the Com, and the True Crime Community. These loosely organized groups exploit gaming platforms, social media, and chat forums to groom and radicalize teens and minors, often using coercion, sextortion, and encouragement of self-harm and violence. Participants will learn how to recognize warning signs, understand pathways into these networks, and intervene with individuals who are at risk or already involved. The training emphasizes treatment and management strategies, including family engagement, addressing vulnerabilities such as suicidality and eating disorders, and working with mandatory or court-ordered clients. The workshop is designed for mental and behavioral health professionals, law enforcement, educators, and members of the legal system, and all practitioners committed to preventing targeted violence are encouraged to attend.
Prevention in Practice Learning Community
In partnership with Boston Children’s Hospital, the PPLC serves as a community of licensed mental and behavioral health providers who want to learn from one another through case studies, discussion, and consultation.
The PPLC aims to provide clinical practitioners with strategies for working with adolescents and adults at risk for violence due to grievances and/or beliefs. This may include individuals in the early stages of contemplating or justifying violence; individuals who are more seriously engaged with violent groups or ideologies; or individuals who have already been criminally charged for threatening or committing an act of violence. We welcome practitioners from a range of practice settings and particularly encourage practitioners with experience in working with high-risk patients.
Since March 2024, the PPLC has conducted 20 case consultation calls and knowledge-sharing webinars and has welcomed 121 licensed practitioners as participants.
If you are a clinically licensed practitioner and would like to join the PPLC, please email Neil Saul at nsaul@eradicatehatesummit.org.
Join Us
Please join the Prevention Practitioners Network to stay updated on our upcoming trainings and workshops, receive the latest research publications on targeted violence prevention, and collaborate with practitioners across the United States.
Additionally, if you’re a professional working directly or indirectly to promote community safety, mental health and wellness, or crisis support, we welcome you to join our Reach Out Resource Hub. The Resource Hub includes nonprofit organizations, state and local agencies, licensed mental health providers, social workers, educators, law enforcement officers and intervention teams, academics, and anyone else working in the community or providing relevant services to those who may know someone at risk of committing an act of hate-fueled violence or may themselves be at risk.
Mental Health and Targeted Violence 101: Preventing School Shootings and Other Mass Casualty Events
