App offers city’s youth a safe space to report concerns, challenges

Seventeen-year-old EJ Dawson doesn’t always know where his next meal is coming from – a problem he used to try to solve on his own to avoid feeling judged. Now, he uses Power of One, a new app available to youth in northeast Denver to report a range of challenges, including food insecurity and violence.

“I’ve used the app a couple of times,” Dawson said. “I have suggested the app to my entire family, and from what I’ve gotten back, it really helps them to be able to express how they feel without knowing the person…. They know that they have other people that are anonymous that they can talk to who won’t judge or point fingers, but just are willing to help.”

That’s exactly what the app developers wanted: a resource to connect young people anonymously with trusted community resources. The idea is that young people will use it to get help with problems that might otherwise have led to criminal activity, and to report potential acts of violence so they can be de-escalated before they ever happen.

To build it, the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence worked with its Game Changers, 35 Denver-area young people who lead six initiatives focused on preventing and reducing youth violence.

Since going live in July, the app has been downloaded about 530 times, said Beverly Kingston, the center’s director. It’s one of five that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funds to address the youth violence it calls a “serious public health problem.”

A round-the-clock answering system picks up what it calls connections – the word the app uses for tips to avoid sounding like snitching – and routes them to one of three destinations: Emergencies go to 911; threats of violence, such as a fight about to break out, go to trained “violence interrupters” at the Denver nonprofit Struggle of Love Foundation; and all others go to one of three peer navigators, community members in their 20s who serve as case managers.

Peer navigators handle requests for things like assistance with food, shelter, clothing, tutoring and mental health. For instance, if someone makes a connection about a teen who wants to play high school football but can’t afford a uniform, the peer navigator helps put support in place. Because this requires follow-ups, the reporter might remain anonymous, but confidentiality replaces anonymity for the person who needs help, Kingston said.

“I want to see it be community-building, culture-building, really building this positive culture where people are less afraid to speak up and to support each other and to get help,” Kingston said of the app. “Success would look like violence [being] reduced because more people would get the help that they need before things would even escalate to that situation. Violence could get interrupted, and it could also never even occur in the first place, because, ‘Hey, now I’m out playing football or I’m part of this really cool activity.’”

Crimes by youth in Denver are on the upswing. The total number of juvenile cases filed in 2023 was 553, up from 489 in 2022 and 360 in 2021, according to the city’s District Attorney’s Office 2023 Annual Report. That tracks with nationwide findings in a September report by the Council on Criminal Justice: Although murder and violent crimes have decreased, according to the FBI, homicides by children increased by 65% between 2016 and 2022.

Power of One is for use in one area of Denver, but bystander reporting systems are gaining traction. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s School Safety Task Force and the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center jointly published a toolkit last year for K-12 schools that want to build such systems.

The Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit founded and led by family members whose loved ones were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, provides the Say Something anonymous reporting system to more than 120 school districts nationwide. It has received more than 278,000 reports and saved 700 lives, according to its website.

Power of One is modeled after a 20-year-old, statewide program in Colorado called Safe2Tell, which lets people anonymously report concerns to local law enforcement. Both use the same P3 Global Intelligence technology to manage tips, but Safe2Tell sends all of them to the police, and not everyone feels comfortable with that, Kingston said.

“I feel like Safe2Tell hears about a situation and immediately goes to the highest threat level,” she said. “With ours, we can identify the situation and identify what type of action level needs to be taken.… We’re very big supporters of Safe2Tell. We just want to have multiple methods for people to be able to report concerns and get help.”

Dawson learned about the app in July on Instagram. Now, he’s not only a user, but a Game Changer, producing videos that promote prosocial behavior. He says it feels great to be involved in the effort.

“I feel like the app is helping,” Dawson said. “It’s working toward helping youth be more comfortable with talking about how they feel and being able to express themselves, and to allow them to ask for help.”