22 Apr Denim Day and SAAM Coalition Episode Featuring Safe Horizon, NY Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence (ENDGBV), and STEPS to End Family Violence (Ep. 5)
EPISODE SUMMARY
Members of the Denim Day NYC Coalition share an informative and educational conversation with the Beauty for Freedom Breaking Distance Team around Sexual Assault Awareness Month Denim Day.
EPISODE NOTES
Members of the Denim Day NYC Coalition share an informative and educational conversation with the Beauty for Freedom Breaking Distance Team around Sexual Assault Awareness Month Denim Day.
Jimmy Meagher Policy Director at Safe Horizon, Erika L. Miller-Bridges, LMSW, Relationship Abuse Prevention Program Coordinator at Harry S Truman High School at STEPS to End Family Violence – a program of Rising Ground and Maisie Breit, a Training and Curriculum Specialist for the Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence (ENDGBV) speak with Breaking Distance about the work their organizations are doing around client services, community programs, sexual, domestic and intimate partner violence prevention and more. They are all valued members of the Denim Day NYC Coalition. https://www.denimday.nyc/2020pledge
ABOUT Erika L. Miller-Bridges, LMSW
She/Her/Hers
Relationship Abuse Prevention Program Coordinator at Harry S Truman High School
STEPS to End Family Violence – a program of Rising Ground
Erika is a New York State licensed Social Worker with the Teen Relationship Abuse Prevention Program (RAPP), administered by STEPS to End Family Violence. RAPP is a school-based program providing educational and counseling services to NYC school communities regarding healthy relating, abuse and bullying prevention. Erika, who has been coordinating RAPP services at Truman since January 2001, has presented hundreds of workshops to students, parents and families, school personnel and community groups on topics including teen dating abuse, healthy relationships, gender role stereotypes, bullying and harassment. RAPP additionally runs a summer leadership training program that prepares students to be youth experts in the area of relationship abuse. The peer leaders thereafter work closely with Erika to create greater awareness and prevention amongst their peers in the school community.
Erika and her Peer Leader group have participated in numerous domestic violence-related community events and conferences including the Gladys Ricart Memorial Brides March and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence’s 30th Anniversary Conference in Washington DC. Erika has spearheaded a variety of school-wide awareness campaigns, such as “Love Is Respect Day”, the “National Day of Silence”, and “International Human Rights Day”. Erika has also coordinated a youth panel addressing relationship abuse and the media, served as a panelist for Sanctuary for Families Love Is Not Abuse forum, and moderated a panel at the NYC LGBTQ DV Task Force Real Lives, Real Survivors Conference, and prepared peer leaders for a youth panel at the 2016 Beyond The Bars conference at Columbia University. In addition to her responsibilities with RAPP, she has collaborated with Men Can Stop Rape to bring the Men of Strength (MOST) Club to Truman, and the Anti-Defamation League, which has awarded Truman HS as a ‘No Place For Hate’ recipient school each year since 2009.
ABOUT STEPS to End Family Violence
SURVIVORS & THEIR FAMILIES / NYC
From Healing to Promoting Healthy Relationships
Our STEPS To End Family Violence cadre of programs is committed to both healing and prevention. We work with survivors and their families to overcome histories of abuse to find positive paths forward. Meanwhile, we work with youth, schools, courts, legislators, and the community at large to advocate for a greater understanding of healthy relationships and how intimate partner violence can lead to any number of subsequent challenges. We are explicitly committed to naming the survivorship of people whose experiences have historically been ignored.
STEPS was founded by the legendary Sister Mary Nerney in 1986 after she convened a gathering of women incarcerated at the Bedford Hills Women’s Correctional Facility who testified to their histories of battering and its relationship to their criminal charges. This historic event created a call to action to create what started as a two-person court advocacy project. In the decades since, STEPS has evolved into a holistic program of services for survivors of intimate partner and other forms of gender-based violence with wide-reaching focuses on healing, prevention, intervention, and policy advocacy.
ABOUT Maisie Breit
Maisie Breit is a Training and Curriculum Specialist for the Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence (ENDGBV) where she develops and implements training and curricula on Intimate Partner Violence, Sexual Violence, Trauma-Responsive Practices, Systems of Oppression, and more. She represents ENDGBV on a number of inter-agency collaborations, as well as the NYC Healthy Nightlife Initiative (OutSmart NYC), for which she provides training and support around bystander intervention and preventing sexual violence for nightlife industry professionals. Before coming to the Mayor’s Office she headed an international educational institution in Southwest Morocco, where she designed and led social-justice focused programs for university students, and spent many years before that working with young people both in the U.S. and internationally. Maisie has an MA in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action from Sciences Po and a BA in Women and Gender Studies and Middle Eastern Studies from Dartmouth College. She works part time as a group fitness instructor, teaching HIIT classes in a hot room.
ABOUT NY Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence
The Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence (ENDGBV) develops policies and programs, provides training and prevention education, conducts research and evaluations, performs community outreach, and operates the New York City Family Justice Centers. We collaborate with City agencies and community stakeholders to ensure access to inclusive services for survivors of domestic and gender-based violence (GBV). GBV can include intimate partner and family violence, elder abuse, sexual assault, stalking, and human trafficking.
The NYC Family Justice Centers are co‐located multidisciplinary service centers providing vital social services, civil legal, and criminal justice assistance for survivors of domestic and gender-based violence and their children—all under one roof.
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/ocdv/index.page
ABOUT Jimmy Meagher
Jimmy Meagher (he/him/his) is Policy Director at Safe Horizon. After graduating from Haverford College in 2008, Jimmy joined Safe Horizon as a client advocate in the Brooklyn Criminal Court Program. Since then, he has moved into increasingly responsible roles within the Criminal Court Program, the Manhattan Family Justice Center, and the Government Affairs Office. While working at Safe Horizon, he obtained his MSW from the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College. He previously oversaw the Domestic Violence and Empowerment (DOVE) Initiative at Safe Horizon.
ABOUT SAFE HORIZON
Safe Horizon is a victim assistance nonprofit that has been standing with victims of violence and abuse in New York City since 1978. We provide assistance, advocacy and support to victims who have experienced domestic violence, child abuse, sexual assault, stalking, human trafficking, youth homelessness and other crimes.
SHOW CONTRIBUTORS
Maisie Breit
Erika Miller-Bridges
Jimmy Meagher
Raj Shah
Monica Watkins
Beauty for Freedom