The Center to Prevent Youth Violence

The Center to Prevent Youth Violence (CPYV), originally known as PAX, is a non-profit organization co-founded in 1998 by Daniel Gross and Talmage Cooley, with the mission of ending the crisis of gun violence in America by repositioning the issue as a common sense matter of public health and safety, rather than the seemingly intractable political wedge issue it had become. By 2002, PAX had become the largest non-lobbying organization working on gun violence prevention as a result of the success and rapid expansion of its ASK and SPEAK UP campaigns, which were designed to have immediate impact on the frequency of gun deaths and injuries, while also shifting the national dialogue around guns to a prevention-driven, public health and safety orientation.

In 2011, PAX officially changed its name to The Center to Prevent Youth Violence[7] to better reflect the youth and family focus of its prevention driven campaigns. In 2012 the organization was merged with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and Daniel Gross became President of the Brady Campaign. Talmage Cooley resigned as co-CEO of The Center to Prevent Youth Violence in 2004 but remained on the organization's Board of Trustees until its merger with the Brady Center in 2012. Cooley is now the Founder and CEO of Democracy.com.

Since inception, CPYV has created groundbreaking public health and safety campaigns that promote the simple steps parents, kids and others can take to prevent violence affecting youth, including gang-related and other urban violence; school shootings; suicides, accidents and homicides involving firearms which claim the lives of eight children and teens every day.

CPYV has created two parent-focused problems aimed at educating parents about simple steps they can take to reduce the risk of violence affecting their children.

The ASK Campaign was launched in 2000 by the gun violence prevention organization PAX (renamed The Center to Prevent Youth Violence in 2011 and merged with the Brady Campaign in 2012). In partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics, the ASK Campaign's goal is to encourage parents to ask if there are guns where their children play (i.e. the homes of friends and relatives). The ASK Campaign includes television and radio public service announcements and collateral materials that inform parents and inspire them to ask about the presence of firearms in the homes where their children play. If the answer is yes, then parents are encouraged to make sure they are stored securely in a place that is inaccessible to children. Community-based ASK Campaigns have been implemented in Rockford, IL and in Portland, OR.

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