If you ask Nashville students what they’re afraid of, one answer is clear: guns.
That’s what a local organization found when they brought young people together to consider the changes they want to see in their communities. Students quickly identified their No. 1 issue as gun violence and outlined multiple efforts they’d like the city to undertake.
Meanwhile, students across Tennessee have been calling upon the state legislature to enact gun reform.
Late last month, just days after a 17-year-old student at Antioch High School fatally shot a classmate and himself, students marched to the Tennessee State Capitol, holding signs with messages like, “protect kids not guns,” and “ ‘pro-life’ but you won’t fight to protect ours.”
The latest march occurred less than two years after thousands flocked to the state capitol in the aftermath of the Covenant School shooting — and with the same request.
The legislature has declined to take up gun control. But, on a local level, Nashville leaders are trying to listen to students. In June, Metro responded to student requests made at a budget public hearing by dedicating $1 million to a new Office of Youth Safety.
A years-long effort
The mayor officially signed the new office into existence in November. But the effort didn’t originate with city leaders.
Rather, it was conjured by local organizers with the Southern Movement Committee. In 2023, the group brought students together to talk about the issues they faced and ways they could be addressed.
“The early idea was really thinking about how do we proactively get in front of gun violence,” said Erica Perry, SMC’s executive director. “How do we proactively create a space for folks to address their conflict? Proactively create a space for young people who are in crisis to have something to rely on?”
Out of these conversations, the Varsity Spending Plan was born. This plan asked Metro to dedicate $10 million toward community center programming, restorative justice work in high schools and an Office of Youth Safety.
During a budget public hearing, the SMC amassed a group of young people to lodge these requests with the council.
“I, for one, feel unsafe and have a hard time learning the criteria that’s being taught,” one student told the council.
Another speaker, Mia Willis, asked everyone present to raise their hands if they had been personally affected by gun violence.
“Too many of our young people believe the trauma they have experienced in only a short amount of time of being on this earth is normal, due to the fact that it is frequently happening,” Willis said. “Seeing a peer get shot and or killed is not normal. Having someone close to you take their own life is not normal. Having numerous family members and friends incarcerated on the daily is not normal.”
The emotions shared at the meeting inspired much of the plan.
“It also comes out of a place of folks grieving,” said Perry, the organizer. “Being like, ‘What would have prevented a crisis from escalating into something where people lost their lives or people ended up in jail or incarcerated?’ ”
The effort emerged as the loudest request made to the council. And, for once, it worked.
While the group wasn’t granted the full $10 million, the council reallocated $1 million of the city’s tight budget toward the effort.
The Office of Youth Safety
Of the $1 million, $250,000 will go toward restorative justice programming at the Napier Community Center. The rest will fund the new office.
A key champion of the project was Councilmember Delishia Porterfield. As the budget chair for the Metro Council at that time she was responsible for finding a tradeoff in the budget to make it happen. She said the office is a relatively new approach for Metro.
“Traditionally, government has operated in [public safety] by policing, our courts, our judicial system,” Porterfield said. “This is a way that we can expand and work with community partners to look at what true public safety looks like.”
Porterfield is currently in conversation with members of the SMC and Metro’s juvenile court clerk to begin laying the groundwork for the office. This involves imagining how it will operate and what it can offer.
Perry points to things like parenting classes and crisis support — things that aren’t as overtly connected to public safety, but that represent a culture shift she says needs to happen in homes, in schools and across the city.
As she reimagines public safety, her focus is on preventing violence in a holistic way.
“We got to be really clear on what we mean by ‘safety’ because the traditional thing hasn’t actually kept us safe. So, how do we redefine it?” Perry said. “By reducing the size and scope of our reliance on policing and courts and really figure out how to get in front of things.”
Metro and restorative justice
The Office of Youth Safety is not the first time the city has ventured into restorative justice work.
In the past, it’s often been through outsourcing to local nonprofits through various grants. But that’s drawn questions about whether it’s enough. And, there’s been controversy.
In 2022, Metro allocated over a million dollars to local group Gideon’s Army. To this day, that hasn’t moved forward. The funds are still being held to by the health department. And late last year, the group’s leader publicly called out the inaction.
But Porterfield thinks that the grant and the new safety office aren’t mutually exclusive.
“We’re not running away from that to now do this,” Porterfield said. “These are things that can run at the same time that have, you know, different target audiences and different approaches.”
Porterfield is continuing to hone the approach of the Office of Youth Safety while the city works to hire a director and staff. She says it should be up and running by the summer.
And the work won’t stop there. Perry says that ending gun violence will be a community effort.
“We saw what happened at Antioch and our hearts are broken,” Perry said. “The invitation is to channel that grief, that rage, that hurt into really building out a future and shaping a future where those things don’t happen. But it can only be possible if we do it together.”
