Escape
For over 25 years NRCDV has worked to strengthen the capacity of programs responding to domestic violence victims and their families by promoting effective public policy, institutional response and research, and engagement in prevention.
NRCDV was established in 1993 with funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). NRCDV operated as a national project housed within the structure of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence (PCADV) until spinning off as an independent organization in 2011.
Today, through key initiatives and special projects, NRCDV works with many other organizations and partners who bring various expertise's, backgrounds, and perspectives, to improve community response to domestic violence and, ultimately, prevent its occurrence.
NRCDV focuses on working through comprehensive technical assistance, training, resource development. Together these three strategies and our key initiatives help us to facilitate a deeper focus on a particular issue or population. NRCDV’s project goals, objectives, approaches and activities are developed in response to feedback from the field and analysis of over 60,000 requests for assistance.
Beginning in 2016, NRCDV engaged in a Racial Justice Initiative designed to transform policies, procedures, practices and organizational culture to be racially equitable and inclusive. NRCDV’s internal work to advance racial equity has included:
- Creating a culture of continuous learning and development for staff on racism, privilege, and oppression.
-
Adoption of and ongoing staff engagement with a public “NRCDV Stands” statement reflecting our organizational commitment to marginalized and targeted communities.
-
Establishing caucuses to advance our shared racial equity work:
-
People of color caucus that provides space for staff to celebrate each other, share their experiences, promote ongoing healing, practice self-care, and identify organizational gaps and strategies to foster equity.
-
White ally caucus to confront privilege and white supremacy, analyze where it shows up at work, and develop strategies for challenging this and holding each other accountable for undoing white supremacist practices.
-
-
Modeling practices that reflect organizational support for people of color leadership in the broader movement and within NRCDV, including through our own diverse staff (10 of 18 of whom are women of color, including the four members of the senior leadership team) and Board of Directors (7 of 10 are people of color).
-
Assessing and revising internal policies, as well as job descriptions and recruitment practices, to remove elements of white supremacy culture and more explicitly address our racial equity work.
-
Development and implementation of “Empowerment Principles” (used in staff supervision and evaluation) that support critical analysis, engagement in decision-making processes and authentic communication.
-
Development of a process to assess all of NRCDV’s work through a racial equity lens, including publications, training materials, online resources, policy strategies/briefs, etc.
-
Intentional efforts to create an organizational culture that prioritizes openness, inclusivity, healing, integrity, accountability, and equity.
-
Development of a process to measure our progress toward becoming an antiracist organization.
