our work
Over the past decade, there have been extraordinary gains in restorative justice and in community violence intervention work, but there is not enough connection between the two fields in practice. This Collaborative aims to close that gap by bringing together people in CVI work in New York City (including neighborhood- and hospital-based violence interrupter programs and more) to integrate an understanding and practice of restorative justice into their work.
In Year 1, leading Community Violence Intervention (CVI) practitioners gathered monthly at Common Justice’s office in Downtown Brooklyn for full-day sessions exploring which restorative justice-based tools and frameworks to address serious violence were most useful to CVI work and then honed how they could be practically applied in their on-the-ground work.
CVI organizations who participated in Year 2 of the Collaborative sent 2-3 members to monthly full-day intensives at Common Justice, which prepared them to then deliver half-day restorative justice trainings each month back at the participating organizations for a wider membership base. In this way, we both deepened the capacity of core Training of Trainer participants and greatly expanded the reach of this practice within their organizations. Over the course of Year 2, 27 trainers delivered 50 trainings worth over 150 hours of content across the 5 boroughs and reaching over 100 additional CVI practitioners.
looking ahead
Year 3 of the NYC Collaborative to Transform Violence will focus on building the capacity for CVI organizations to effectively use Restorative Justice Circles and to continue shifting norms toward being more Survivor-Centered and Accountability-Based. We plan for organizations to again send 2-3 members to monthly full-day intensives at Common Justice starting in September 2026. This year, however, they will return each month to their own organizations to lead either an On-Site Restorative Justice Learning Conversations or On-Site Restorative Justice Training .
NYC Collaborative
NYC Collaborative
NYC Collaborative
We’re transforming violence.
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For more information about the NYC Collaborative to Transform Violence, contact Cameron Cassar, Senior Training Manager II, at ccassar@commonjustice.org.