Serenity Jones doesn’t let her anger get the best of her anymore.

A 12-year-old River Trail School student, Serenity learned anger management and self-control techniques in the Junior Violence Interrupters program.

She learned to recognize the triggers that make her angry. Now she knows, if someone upsets her, to leave the room and practice breath work to calm down.

“I’m not going to say that I am all the way ready,” Serenity said. “I know how to calm myself down now. A lot of people, if they are arguing or something, go straight to fighting or worse.”

Her advice to young people when they’re angry — just breathe.

“If you’re mad, you tend to do stuff you’ll regret later because it is so in the moment,” Serenity said. “Breathing is better.”

The Junior Violence Interrupters program is the brainchild of Minister Caliph Muab El of Breaking Barriers Mentoring Inc., a violence intervention and prevention program that empowers youth to be change agents in their communities.

It’s adapted from the Chicago-based Violence Interrupters, a nationally recognized preemptive violence intervention program aimed at young adults ages 18-26. The program relies on former street gang members to mediate conflict before it escalates.

Milwaukee’s initiative takes a different approach. The pilot program focuses on youth and equips them with conflict-resolution, emotional-control and peer-mediation skills.

The goal is to break the school-to-prison pipeline by addressing behaviors like fighting that can lead to suspensions or expulsions. During the 2023-24 school year, MPS students were suspended over 23,000 times. The majority were African Americans, according to state data.

Muab El said kids younger than 12 are causing a lot of these conflicts in schools, resulting in suspensions. The trouble sometimes extends outside of schools and can lead to possible contact with police.

“The idea is, if we get to them younger and start to embed these strategies and different types of skill sets, they’ll be able to save a life in the future, including their own,” he said.

The program, which began in November, graduated its first class of 15 junior violence interrupters last month.  Milwaukee is the first city to pilot the Violence Interrupters program for school-age kids.

They learned communication skills, trauma-informed care, mentoring and “circle-keeping,” or safe discussion groups — skillsets needed to become what Muab El calls “credible messengers” or peer mediators in their schools and communities.

Muab El describes “credible messengership” as someone with influence in the community. They use that influence to resolve conflicts by getting “into crevices of conflict that ordinary people wouldn’t be able to reach or access,” he said.

They learn through role play not only about conflict resolution but the science of violence — where it comes from and how trauma and adverse childhood experiences contribute to it.

“They learn about all of that,” Muab El said. “These youth are learning mechanics that youth … committing acts of violence don’t have in their tool bag.”

This enables youth to apply strategies to different levels of conflict and how to identify conflict when it comes, he said. They’ll become those credible messengers, encouraging their peers to use these same methods to avoid conflicts that could escalate to gun violence or physical violence.

Peer-to-peer mediation, Muab El said, makes sense because kids understand each other better than adults.

“They are excited to learn,” he said. “They’re really excited about being interrupters and being a part of the solution.”

Tio “Mr. Ceasefire” Hardiman, Violence Interrupters founder and executive director, has known Muab El for years, working with him to quell tension after the 2020 Jacob Blake shooting in Kenosha.

He said both Milwaukee and Chicago share high incidences of violence, especially among youth and young adults. And Muab El’s work with youth made piloting a Junior Violence Interrupters initiative in Milwaukee a good fit, Hardiman said.

Hardiman wants young people to have a better understanding of how violence affects the community and become leaders in this peace movement.

“This is not just street outreach. It’s about understanding that violence is learned behavior and you can unlearn violent behavior,” he said. “No parent wants to bury their child. So, it’s incumbent upon the younger people now to kind of think on a higher level.”

Youth in the program develop tools to defuse potentially violent situations

As part of the program, the kids had to create projects that engage the community around violence prevention and conflict-resolution techniques.

Jaeda Evans, 7, a student at St. Anthony School, wants to create an app to help kids with bullying. She got the idea after seeing a student get bullied in school. She wanted to intervene, but didn’t know how.

With her parents’ help, Jaeda’s app will have examples of violence intervention techniques, so both parents and kids can learn in a fun, game-like setting. She said it’s important for kids to know how and when to mediate conflicts and, if they can’t, have an adult get involved.

Anija Williams-Sanders’ project was inspired by her godmother. Williams-Sanders, 12, a student at HOPE Christian School: Fidelis, would help her godmother face-paint at neighborhood festivals.

She wants to use art therapy to help youth channel their emotions by hosting pop-up paint therapies at neighborhood block parties.

“Basically, we go out and let people paint and release everything that is built up into their art project,” she said. “People have their hobbies like going to the gym and working out to relieve their anger. It would be like that.”

The aim, Anija said, is to help kids find outlets to express emotions in constructive ways, like doing karate, exercising or boxing, instead of getting into fights.

She knows this firsthand. She got into fights in school and had been suspended a few times. She got into boxing and yoga offered through the program, which helped her redirect her emotions — and she didn’t get into any fights or arguments this school year.

Circle-keeping allows kids the space to talk

Anija found circle-keeping the most helpful tool, allowing youth the space to talk about anything affecting them, without judgment.

“They really just let you spill whatever you want to,” she said. “It just can’t leave the circle.”

“They share some stuff they don’t want people to know, but get comfortable with us to tell us,” added Qurinah Hasan, 12, a River Trail School student who led a few youth circles.

She led one on cyberbullying, teaching kids how to protect themselves and not to do it to others.

“I love this place,” said Qurinah, who wants to be a mentor for the program’s next cohort. “I know I learned a lot. I loved to teach other kids what I learned.”

She joined the program with her sisters Serenity and Allyah to meet other kids, but got so much more from it.

“Before this program, I was bad in school,” Qurinah said. “I was running the hallways, not listening. But now it is under control. They taught us a lot here.”

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