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 each other’s 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 participating 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.
year 3
Our third year of the NYC Collaborative to Transform Violence is focused on building the capacity of CVI organizations to effectively use restorative justice circles and to continue shifting norms toward being more survivor-centered and accountability-based. Starting in September 2026, organizations representing CVI work in all five boroughs of NYC are again sending 2-3 members to monthly full-day intensives at Common Justice. This year, rather than going back to train each other’s teams, they are returning each month to their own organizations to lead gatherings and trainings toward building larger restorative justice teams to carry the work forward in their neighborhood.
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.