Aligning Systems for Equity: Evaluating Durham's Safety Hub Approach

This study will assess the feasibility of implementing a community co-designed initiative that integrates health, social, public safety, and justice services under a single local government umbrella agency. The initiative focuses on improving the health, safety, and wellbeing of communities harmed by systemic racism and to reduce involvement in the criminal legal system. Local government services to be integrated include street outreach, alternative first responders, harm reduction, reentry, housing, income support, behavioral health services, and victim services. The intervention directly engages justice-involved community members with lived experience of systemic racism to co-design the integrated services through journey mapping and systems mapping workshops. The integration of services is designed to dismantle forms of systemic racism that channel racial and ethnic minority communities into criminal, legal and correctional systems due to barriers in accessing high quality, coordinated health and social services.

The study’s qualitative research design includes journey mapping sessions conducted with 12-18 community members who have recently used services delivered by the local government umbrella agency. Measures collected will include perceived ease of navigation, operational coordination, cultural and linguistic accessibility, and alignment with community needs and values. Participants will visually chart their service journeys, focusing on pain points, support moments, eligibility hurdles, and cross-system hand-offs.  Additionally, qualitative systems mapping workshops will be conducted with 25-30 representatives of health and social services staff members to identify points of misalignment and co-develop potential reform pathways for both intra-organizational operations and inter-organizational coordination. Systems mapping exercises will include a participatory data mapping process to identify existing data sources, data sharing mechanisms and data gaps that need to be addressed to improve coordinated service delivery and evaluation.

Principal Investigators: 
Shylah Duchicela, MPP
Program Impact Strategist, Department of Community Safety, City of Durham

Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, PhD
Associate Professor, Population Health Sciences, Duke University

Project Details:

Year: 2025
Funding Amount: $200,000
Status: Active