Healthy and meaningful relationships are key to our well-being. The ability to connect with others, share experiences, and feel a sense of belonging provides stability to our lives. However, within relationships – when one partner is abusive and controlling to another – a relationship that should be a site of love and support can become enormously harmful. When people, predominantly women and their children, are in an environment defined by abuse, fear – for their lives, of losing everything, of shame from their community – it can lead to desperate actions. Beyond physical threats, the trauma of abuse impacts the emotional and mental well-being of survivors and their children.

Our Intimate Partner Violence cadre of programs, STEPS to End Family Violence, is committed to both healing and prevention. We work with survivors and their families to overcome histories of abuse to find positive paths forward. We work with those who have caused or recognize the potential to cause harm to explore root causes and envision healthy relationships. 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.

Rising Ground’s work in this area has evolved from a two-person court advocacy project in 1986. STEPS to End Family Violence was founded by the legendary Sister Mary Nerney then 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 that has, in the decades since, expanded into a holistic set of services for survivors of intimate-partner and other forms of gender-based violence, as well as of the communities at large, with wide-reaching focuses on healing, prevention, intervention, and policy advocacy.

Programs That Promise Success