Connect Inc

We have developed partnerships with over 220 community organizations including public libraries, small businesses, centers of worship, and community health centers to create and support innovative new ways of addressing domestic violence in under-served communities.

A glimpse of some of our programs: Community Empowerment Program (CEP): Focuses on domestic violence prevention in communities through a unique multi-faceted program design that incorporates transformative education, strengthening of existing infrastructures, network building, community-focused, capacity building and assistance with the development of resources. This includes our programs with faith leaders, young men and fathers, young women and peer leaders. CONNECT Training Institute (CTI): Educates professionals and community members in the dynamics and consequences of violence in the family while providing them with the tools to better serve their own communities and families when dealing with domestic violence issues. Through transformative education participants critically examine how their own beliefs and behaviors have been shaped by unjust and oppressive societal norms.( eg. sexism, racism) Legal Advocacy Program (LAP): Legal Helpline & Coordinated Action Against Violence (CAAV)- Created to assist individual victims of domestic abuse with the law enforcement and judicial response to incidents of violence. The only organization in New York City to offer attorney-supervised and up-to-date legal information over the phone.  CONNECT Faith: Communities of faith and their leaders have the potential to play a significant role in helping to prevent and eliminate family violence. Envisioning a city where safe families and peaceful communities can flourish, CONNECT Faith is committed to working in collaboration with New York City’s diverse faith communities to create and strengthen their response to gender and family violence. Help make your community a sanctuary of safety where justice and healing can be experienced by all. Alliance for the Safety of Animals and People (ASAP): In March of 2007, CONNECT created ASAP to begin exploring ways in which the human and animal service professionals can work together to train, raise awareness among service providers and the larger community, as well as explore the creation of model programming to best serve the needs of women, children and companion animals in families experiencing domestic violence.  CONNECT Youth: is a comprehensive violence prevention program designed to empower young people to create responses to the various forms of violence in their lives. With a social justice focus, this program aims to foster the development of grassroots youth-lead efforts that support the development of respect and mutuality in relationships. This multi-level program includes: Girls Empowerment a unique curriculum that creates a safe space for girls.CONNECT is committed to healing and positive self-image for girls and we encourages young women to 1. Identify and reflect on their lives and the empowering and disempowering moments that mark them; 2. Assess their lives in different areas (relationship to self, home environment, education/learning); 3. Create individual plans to heal from internalized oppression and also includes Transitioning into Men: Creating allies with young men to end violence against women and girls - a comprehensive program that critically examines the cultural and historical belief systems, gender socializations that can lead to family, domestic, teen dating, gang and gender violence.  CONNECT encourages young men to: 1. Analyze abuse within race, class and gender; 2.Define contributors that lead to different forms of violence, connecting teen dating violence with other forms of youth and community violence; 3. Develop their own preventive and intervention strategies to stop abusive cycles of behavior and help build and maintain safe and healthy relationships; 4. Be identified to be developed into peer educators in school and community settings.  CONNECT Youth is dedicated to creating a safer place for the youth of New York City to flourish into healthy individuals, active community members, and positive support systems for one another.

Our goals are: 1.Create model programs that stress prevention, early-intervention, and most importantly, community-generated solutions; 2.Train service providers to identify and assist families in which there is violence; 3.Motivate system reform and policy changes by providing expertise to government and organizing affected constituents to participate in the policy making process; 4.Create long-lasting collaborative relationships with community organizations and individuals to fully address the complex needs of New York City communities.