Vaughn Bryant

Vaughn Bryant is Executive Director of Metropolitan Peace Initiatives (MPI), a division of Metropolitan Family Services which works in partnership with community-based organizations to coordinate, support, and sustain comprehensive services designed to heal communities that have experienced the highest levels of gun violence. Core specialties include the Metropolitan Peace Academy, behavioral health, workforce readiness, legal aid, and street outreach supervision.

Metropolitan Peace Initiatives emerged from and supports Communities Partnering 4 Peace (CP4P), an unprecedented partnership of leading outreach and restorative justice organizations that are reducing gun violence in Chicago with a comprehensive, evidence-based, trauma-informed approach. Convened by MPI and working with the public and private sectors, CP4P is a coordinated response to the public health crisis that is gun violence. Since CP4P’s launch in April 2016, it has expanded to 13 organizations providing street outreach, case management, re-entry, and victim assistance services in 27 communities.

Bryant previously held leadership roles with the Chicago Park District, Chicago Public Schools (where he developed the ‘Safe passage” program), the NFL, and Stanford University. He was a former fourth-round draft choice of the Detroit Lions, a three-year starter, a two time All-Pac-10 selection at Stanford, and a 1994 inductee into the Detroit Catholic League Hall of Fame.

A Leadership Greater Chicago fellow, Bryant is a board member for the Positive Coaching Alliance – Chicago. Bryant has a BA from Stanford University and holds an MS from Northwestern University.