Lori Toscano is the Director of Justice Technical Assistance at WestEd. She works to expand and deepen WestEd’s justice work and impact. Her areas of expertise include technical assistance, training development, program development and implementation, strategic development, and systems change. Toscano has over 20 years of experience in community-based violence prevention and intervention.
Toscano was part of the team that received a WestEd Strategic Investment grant to provide a blueprint for local jurisdictions to prioritize, plan, and evaluate strategies to reduce current violence, prevent future violence, and co-create a sustainable system that improves outcomes for communities.
Previously, she was the Executive Director of Program Innovation at Cure Violence Global and has provided technical assistance to the DOJ Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) and Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Supporting Male Survivors of Violence and Advancing Hospital-based Victims Services demonstration projects. She has worked both nationally and internationally with cities and communities disproportionally impacted by violence.
Toscano co-led a team that received a WestEd Strategic Investment Grant to support the go-to-market strategy and development of implementation process tools for the Violence Prevention Navigation Framework (VPNF) for Preventing Violence. VPNF is a data-driven public health approach to primary prevention of gun violence.
Toscano received her BS from Towson State University and a MS in Criminal Justice from the University of Baltimore.