This fall, I had an amazing opportunity to give the keynote address at the 5th annual Safe & Healthy School Summit hosted by the Northwestern District Attorney’s office. I would be sharing the stage with some of my heroes, including Attorney General Maura Healey, and speaking to a room of accomplished school professionals. I had a lot of time to think and reflect on my remarks…
This week’s blog post is from C, a member of our Shelter staff. Professor and author Derald Wing Sue describes micro aggressions as “every day verbal, nonverbal and environmental slights, snubs or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership.” and over time, these experiences have a toxic impact on our psyche….
Times of change and transition are never easy. They always bring questions, uncertainty, and apprehension. After a long and tough campaign season, we find ourselves in the aftermath of an election that upended conventional political wisdom and proved the polls and the punditry wrong. Now what? No one really knows what to expect next. Comments made during the duration of this campaign and in the past…
Sometimes it feels that there are no words. And sometimes it feels that there are too many words. So much happening in our world today and the news comes at us immediately and over and over again. Each of us has our own response to the news – including all of us at REACH. Each of us gets our news from different sources, reads different posts…
Last week, REACH’s staff meeting featured a discussion on race and privilege, led by several staff members who had attended a workshop called “Undoing Racism” with the Peoples Institute for Survival and Beyond. In this week’s blog post, one of our Community Advocates (whose name we can’t share for confidentiality reasons) shares her thoughts:
Almost two years ago, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Boston Globe about a case that had just made the news. This case has been in the headlines again: now dubbed the ‘Snapchat rape case,’ the defendants were recently found guilty. The questions I posed in that letter feel even more crucial in the current environment: When will we accept that society refuses…
People often ask me why someone should donate to REACH. There are many ways to answer this not-so-simple question, but the best one is this: I have amazing colleagues, who are experts in the field and truly make a difference in countless lives every day. In my twenty years of raising money for wonderful nonprofits in Greater Boston, I can honestly say that I have never…
I’m Breathing, Intentionally On Thursday May 12, the REACH staff attended a program in Boston – with the incredible help of volunteers, we were able to bring almost every full and part time staff member. This wasn’t a training like we usually attend to understand housing, a new law, benefits, or school access for kids who are homeless. This was a full day talking about…
“What do you do for work?” It’s a question everyone asks and answers all the time, and you probably don’t think much about it, unless you’ve gone through a period of unemployment, or you work for the CIA and need a cover story. When I tell people that I work for a domestic violence agency, 99% of the time the reaction I get is, “Oh so…
Last August I celebrated my 30th birthday: a milestone for me not only having reached a new decade, but also marking 15 years that I had been doing sexual and domestic violence prevention work. In other words, half my lifetime. I took this opportunity to look back over the past 15 years and reflect on the trends I’ve seen in prevention work across Massachusetts and the…
