Over the weekend, Mayor Brandon Johnson signed the Peacebook Executive Order to establish the city’s first permanent year-round Peacekeeping program, hiring 50 Youth Peacekeepers and four Youth Safety Advisors.
Several elected leaders, cabinet members, community violence interrupters stood behind Johnson in solidarity: U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly (IL-2); Department of Family and Support Services Commissioner Angela Green; Deputy Mayor for Community Safety Emmanuel Andre; Director of Reentry Joseph Mapp; William Hall (6th Ward), Jeanette Taylor (20th Ward), Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th Ward) Jessie Fuentes (26th Ward) and Rossana Rodríguez Sánchez (33rd Ward).
The genesis of Johnson’s latest executive order stems from the years-long organizing and advocacy efforts by the youth-led nonprofit GoodKids MadCity (GKMC) and their summer Peacekeeper jobs program, which has been in effect since 2024.
Youth Peacekeepers aged 16-24 will work on a part-time basis while training their peers in conflict resolution and de-escalation skills, organize youth-serving mutual aid networks and connect residents with resources and supportive services. While Youth Safety Advisors will be employed full-time to supervise, guide and mentor the Youth Peacekeepers.
“As a young father, this work for me is very important,” Isaiah Williams, a GKMC youth organizer, said during the press conference. “It’s important for youth to have alternatives like restorative justice, actually learn from it, and be in a city where teens take responsibility for making their community a safer place and resources and opportunities are accessible citywide.”
Williams also spoke about the recent loss of classmates at Hyde Park Academy High School. 16-year-old Eric Billups was shot and killed on April 16 at a CTA bus stop just steps away from the South Side high school another student was also injured.
“We lost many, many teens, many young people, to gun violence, especially within my school,” he said. “I also appreciate [Mayor] Brandon Johnson for supporting us in this youth-led vision.”
He added that GKMC also seeks full support for Peacekeeping from the Chicago City Council in the 2027 budget.
Johnson praised GKMC’s relentless organizing efforts and their leadership on the Peacebook Ordinance.
“We’re taking an important step forward in our work to build safer communities by signing the Peacebook Executive Order, an action rooted in a very simple but powerful belief that our young people are leaders in creating peace across this city. Johnson said. “The Peacebook was conceived by young people themselves after learning about the gang book, a list that labels young people based on alleged affiliations.”
In 2021, then, Mayor Lori Lightfoot proposed an ordinance that would allow the city to sue gang members and seize their property. GKMC was one of many civil rights and community-based groups opposed to the plan.
Instead, GKMC advocated for the passage of the Peacebook Ordinance, which calls for reallocating funds from the Chicago Police Department’s budget to support youth jobs, mental health care, safe spaces, and community-based violence interruption.
“They asked a very powerful question: Where is the peace book? Where is the resource that lifts up young people who are doing the opposite, who are leading, organizing and working every day to make their community safer?” Johnson said. “That question wasn’t just insightful, it was a transformative question, because those who ask the questions get to direct how we solve the very question that we’re raising.”
Since its inception, GKMC has focused on reducing inter-communal violence and over-policing while working to flip negative perceptions about youth.
The Peacebook Executive Order, or Executive Order 2026-2, directs the city’s Department of Family and Support Services to grant up to $900,000 to facilitate the year-round Peacekeepers program and will also establish a Peacebook Working Group to develop a framework for citywide investment in youth peacekeeping.
“DFSS is deeply committed to continuing the youth peacekeeping work we know is bringing real change to our neighborhoods,” DFSS Commissioner Angela Green said in a press statement. “The significance of Mayor Johnson’s expanded investment into this effort, through the new youth-centered peacekeeping initiatives outlined in this executive order, cannot be overstated. This innovative work is truly going to change and save young people’s lives. This is government at its best.”
In 2024, GKMC employed 100 youth through the launch of its summer peacekeeping pilot program as part of the city’s One Summer Chicago employment initiative. In the next year, the city doubled the number of positions in GKMC’s summer Peacekeepers program from 100 to 200.
“I see your life-saving work. Thank you for helping to keep our community safe and opening more opportunities for our youth and teenagers,” Kelly said. “Solutions like restorative justice, trauma-informed care, mental health resources and street outreach are evidence-based and proven to reduce gun violence.”
Peacekeeper participants will work alongside DFSS to develop a youth resource app, which will be integrated into the MyChi MyFuture app. A future Peacebook app will be developed alongside the Peacbook Executive Order.
“The Peacebook ordinance is a simple ask,” Fuentes said. “It is to have young people at the table helping us create policies that allow them to bring restorative justice, trauma-informed care, mental health care, peacekeeping and violence interruption into their communities in the way that they see fit. To have a Peacebook app that gives young people all the resources they need to identify safe places in their communities or to demand that safe spaces be built there.”
The Peacebook Working Group will make recommendations for the Peacebook Pilot. This citywide initiative aims to reduce violence by focusing on prevention, opportunity and youth leadership and will begin meeting within 30 days of the order’s effective date.
The group will outline budgets, funding, and rollout plans for neighborhood and citywide Peace commissions, and provide advice on how Youth Peacekeepers can address trends and rapid-response safety needs.
Increasing job opportunities for youth is part of the Johnson administration’s multipronged approach to addressing Chicago’s violence holistically and not punitively. In 2025, the city surpassed its goal of hiring more youth for summer employment by 1,000. In total, more than 30,000 young people were employed.
“This executive order sends a signal to the young people in this city and to all the residents in this city that I am always going to be 10 toes down when it comes to Black and brown children, and I’m going to invest in them,” Johnson said.
