justice is truth in action

Our mission is to transform community responses to violence and trauma through forming alliances, enhancing policies, and creating sustainable change.

  • gap

    After decades of work on the front lines, RESPOND was established to fill identified gaps in the system that impede justice, healing, and advancement of reform.

  • strategy

    Our approach integrates the experience of individuals, practitioners and communities to collectively improve the systemic response to violence and trauma.

  • commitment

    We are committed to improving systemic response to violence and trauma by facilitating solutions that move professionals, individuals and communities from awareness to action.

SURVIVING STRANGULATION: FIGHTING FOR YOUR LIFE

In cases involving gender-based violence, practitioners often rely on physical violence and injury to determine criminal accountability, and the limits and complexities of the legal system are not designed to fully consider contextual evidence. As a result, investigations and prosecutions can fail to identify the impact of trauma, the necessity of survival, or the role coercion plays in the decision making of survivors. When this happens, survivors can be criminalized, predators avoid accountability, and we miss valuable opportunities to prevent further harm.

Not Today Campaign

points to the strength of women and the resilience that we have to stand up to others who try to overpower and control us.

-Lynn, Survivor & Creator of “Not Today” Campaign

Do No Harm

Female Healthcare Workers and Their Supporters Against Intimate Partner Violence

“The fact that you’ve gone this far, this long, without any real

consequences for your behavior is amazing to me”

- Jennifer Pena, District Judge

We rely on the donations of private citizens to fuel change.

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