Resources for Addressing Harm, Accountability, and Healing
Toolkits, Reports, and Guides
Community Accountability for Survivors of Sexual Violence Toolkit by Jane Hereth and Chez Rumpf
This toolkit is a product of the Shifting from Carceral to Transformative Justice Feminisms Conference held at DePaul University on March 8, 2014. The toolkit provides background on a reading group held for survivors of sexual violence, the curriculum for that group, and a workshop curriculum on community accountability for survivors of sexual violence.
Community Accountability within the People of Color Progressive Movement by INCITE! Women of Color against Violence Ad-Hoc Community Accountability Working Group
Report outlines ways to address gender oppression within progressive, radical, and revolutionary people of color organizations and movements.
Communities Engaged in Resisting Violence by Ann Russo and Melissa Spatz
A report outlining models, definitions, approaches, structures, and strategies used in Chicago to offer alternative models to approach interpersonal violence and state violence against women.
Creative Interventions Toolkit: An Invitation and Practical Guide for Everyone to Stop Violence
Toolkit laying out strategies for intervening in situations of interpersonal harm. Thorough and cross referenced; can be used as a single document or in sections.
Girls Do What They Have to Do to Survive: Illuminating Methods Used by Girls in the Sex Trade and Street Economy to Fight Back and Heal by Young Women’s Empowerment Project
Participatory research conducted by a group of youth and allies that lays out how girls who participate in sex work and the street economy take care of themselves and each other around issues of harm and violence.
It Takes a Village, People: Advocacy, Friends and Family, & LGBT Survivors of Abuse by The Northwest Network
A toolkit with information, tools, and guidance for people wanting to support queer and gender nonconforming survivors of abuse.
Nonviolent Community Safety and Peacebuilding by P’tchang
A handbook for increasing community safety with a range of tools to increase skills in a variety of areas related to community-based safety and accountability from a group that was based in Melbourne, Australia.
Philly Stands Up Portrait of Praxis: An Anatomy of Accountability by Esteban Lance Kelly & Jenna Peters-Golden
A step by step guide to Philly Stands Up’s accountability process working with people that have done harm, complete with a great visual of an accountability road map.
Sylvia Rivera Law Project Collective Member Handbook, by Sylvia Rivera Law Project
This member handbook outlines an intentional organizational recruitment process and buddy system for membership as well as an intentional exit process. The toolkit includes Member and Staff evaluations as well as an outlined grievance policy.
Toward Transformative Justice: A Liberatory Approach to Child Sexual Abuse and Other Forms of Intimate and Community Violence by Generation FIVE
A guide outlining Generation FIVE’s approach to transformative justice. The guide includes an overview of the theory and principles as well as tools for practicing transformative justice.
Books, Zines, Journals
Community Accountability: Emerging Movements to Transform Violence, a special issue of Social Justice: A Journal of Crime, Conflict & World Order (Vol 37, No. 4, 2011-2012), Clarissa Rojas Durazo, Alisa Bierria, and Mimi Kim (eds.)
This special issue of Social Justice, includes essays ranging from theory to grassroots organizing projects addressing community-based strategies for addressing gendered violence. The blog associated with the issue offers a wide range of resources and links on the topic.
Miklat, Miklat: A Transformative Justice Zine by Lewis Wallace and Micah Bazant
A companion piece to an art installation by the same name, this zine exploring the idea of sanctuary cities, cities of refuge, and transformative justice. Includes a range of pieces demonstrating a variety of approaches to community accountability practices.
The Revolution Starts at Home by Ching-In Chen, Jai Dulani, and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (eds). South End Press 2011. A book based on a widely circulated and used zine by the same name, The Revolution Starts at Home is a collection of stories and tools for community accountability addressing interpersonal harm within social justice movements without relying on the prison industrial complex.
Articles, Essays, Statements
Community Accountability Fact Sheet by INCITE! Women of Color against Violence
An abbreviated version of INCITE!’s Community Accountability Working Document with helpful visuals.
Community Accountability Working Document by INCITE! Women of Color against Violence
A foundational piece on community accountability, laying out core principles, questions for consideration, strategies, and models.
Critical Resistance/INCITE! Statement on Gender Violence and the Prison Industrial Complex by INCITE! Women of Color against Violence and Critical Resistance.
This statement was jointly written in 2001 to challenge the anti-violence and anti-prison movements to be more accountable to women of color and LGBT people of color who experience an intersection of state violence and gender violence.
Harm Free Zone Project General Framework by New York Harm Free Zone Collective
This document outlines basic principles and practices used to imagine building community-based harm free zones in New York City.
Philly’s Pissed: Shifting the Balance of Power in Our Communities by Timothy Colman
An overview of Philly’s Pissed’s approach to working with survivors of sexual violence.
Points of Unity by Philly Stands Up
This document lays out Philly Stands Up’s points of unity – identifying a commitment to non-hierarchical decision making, communication, honesty, and assuming the best intentions of fellow members.
Principles/Concerns/Strategies/Models by Queer Transformative Justice Working Group (Chicago)
A piece outlining four core principles to which a community can be accountable around issues of harm and violence.
Strategies for Cultivating Community Accountability by Ann Russo
A piece outlining practical strategies for supporting community accountability efforts based on work done through the Building Communities, Ending Violence project at DePaul University in Chicago.
Workshops, Trainings, and Curricula
Building Violence-Free Communities by Escuela Popular Norteña
A popular education workshop aimed at addressing violence against women of color.
Transformative Justice: A Curriculum Guide by Project Nia
A curriculum designed to raise public awareness about transformative justice and to think critically about the prison industrial complex. Includes overview documents and activities with facilitation guides.
Multi-Media
StoryTelling & Organizing Project (STOP)
STOP is a community project collecting and sharing stories about everyday people taking action to end interpersonal violence. The site includes sample audio stories with transcripts, video clips of community listening sessions, and a wealth of resources and links.
Interpersonal Harm
Community Accountability: Emerging Movements to Transform Violence, a special issue of Social Justice: A Journal of Crime, Conflict & World Order (Vol 37, No. 4, 2011-2012), Clarissa Rojas Durazo, Alisa Bierria, and Mimi Kim (eds.)
This special issue of Social Justice, includes essays ranging from theory to grassroots organizing projects addressing community-based strategies for addressing gendered violence. The blog associated with the issue offers a wide range of resources and links on the topic.
Community Accountability within the People of Color Progressive Movement by INCITE! Women of Color against Violence Ad-Hoc Community Accountability Working Group
Report outlines ways to address gender oppression within progressive, radical, and revolutionary people of color organizations and movements.
Creative Interventions Toolkit: An Invitation and Practical Guide for Everyone to Stop Violence
Toolkit laying out strategies for intervening in situations of interpersonal harm. Thorough and cross referenced; can be used as a single document or in sections.
Critical Resistance/INCITE! Statement on Gender Violence and the Prison Industrial Complex by INCITE! Women of Color against Violence and Critical Resistance.
This statement was jointly written in 2011 to challenge the anti-violence and anti-prison movements to be more accountable to women of color and LGBT people of color who experience an intersection of state violence and gender violence.
Principles/Concerns/Strategies/Models by Queer Transformative Justice Working Group (Chicago)
A piece outlining four core principles to which a community can be accountable around issues of harm and violence.
StoryTelling & Organizing Project (STOP)
STOP is a community project collecting and sharing stories about everyday people taking action to end interpersonal violence. The site includes sample audio stories with transcripts, video clips of community listening sessions, and a wealth of resources and links.
Collective Accountability
Building Violence-Free Communities by Escuela Popular Norteña
A popular education workshop aimed at addressing violence against women of color.
Community Accountability within the People of Color Progressive Movement by INCITE! Women of Color against Violence Ad-Hoc Community Accountability Working Group
Report outlines ways to address gender oppression within progressive, radical, and revolutionary people of color organizations and movements.
Points of Unity by Philly Stands Up
This document lays out Philly Stands Up’s points of unity – identifying a commitment to non-hierarchical decision making, communication, honesty, and assuming the best intentions of fellow members.
Sylvia Rivera Law Project Collective Member Handbook, by Sylvia Rivera Law Project
This member handbook outlines an intentional organizational recruitment process and buddy system for membership as well as an intentional exit process. The toolkit includes Member and Staff evaluations as well as an outlined grievance policy.
Trauma and Healing
Girls Do What They Have to Do to Survive: Illuminating Methods Used by Girls in the Sex Trade and Street Economy to Fight Back and Heal by Young Women’s Empowerment Project
Participatory research conducted by a group of youth and allies that lays out how girls who participate in sex work and the street economy take care of themselves and each other around issues of harm and violence.
“Here We Are, Amazingly Alive”: Holding Ourselves Together with an Ethic of Social Justice in Community Work by Cathy Richardson and Vikki Reynolds, International Journal of Child, Youth, and Family Studies, 2012.
A radical social work approach to doing social justice work including ideas about staying alive in community work and resisting the individualism of “burnout”.
The Revolution Starts at Home by Ching-In Chen, Jai Dulani, and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (eds). South End Press 2011. A book based on a widely circulated and used zine by the same name, The Revolution Starts at Home is a collection of stories and tools for community accountability addressing interpersonal harm within social justice movements without relying on the prison industrial complex.
Somatics & Trauma Reading List by Generative Somatics
A bibliography of resources on generative (politicized) somatics and other approaches for addressing trauma.
Toward Transformative Justice: A Liberatory Approach to Child Sexual Abuse and Other Forms of Intimate and Community Violence by Generation FIVE
A guide outlining Generation FIVE’s approach to transformative justice. The guide includes an overview of the theory and principles as well as tools for practicing transformative justice.
Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others by Laura Van Dernoot Lipsky with Connie Burk, Berrett—Koehler Publishers, 2009.
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