October provides several commemorative holidays and awareness opportunities to help us become more proactive in addressing and preventing violence in our lives and communities.
These include:
Bullying Prevention Month
Domestic Violence Awareness Month
Global Diversity Awareness Month
LGBTQIA+ History Month
National Disability Employment Awareness Month
What each of these observances encourages us to do is recognize that marginalized people have lives that are inherently worthy and deserving of full human rights. Included in that is a commitment to end violence against marginalized people.
Violence is an ongoing, long-term, systemic issue within our society. We must dismantle the structures that make inequality and the violence to enforce it seem normal. Learn more about patriarchal violence to understand the deep roots and everyday nature of violence in our society.
The following short list of organizations provides some resources for people within these communities to learn more about ways to reach out if they are experiencing violence and to engage with those within their communities to prevent it. Importantly, these resources are targeted to all of us. We can be supporters and advocates of anti-violence actions in any group we belong to. If you are currently experiencing violence, your primary mission is survival. You are brave, valuable and worthy.
Resources
Alternatives to Calling Police
Each of these resources below is an alternative to calling police by providing specific support to people in crisis or providing support to prevent crisis. For additional alternatives to calling police, visit the Don't Call the Police directory, which lists resources available nationally and local resources by city.
https://dontcallthepolice.com/
People of the Global Majority
Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective (BEAM)
BEAM’s mission is to remove the barriers that Black people experience getting access to or staying connected with emotional health care and healing. They do this through education, training, advocacy and the creative arts. They envision a world where there are no barriers to Black healing.
Specifically, they provide resources to support the mental health and emotional growth of Black men and masculine people.
The Loveland Foundation
Loveland Foundation is committed to showing up for communities of color in unique and powerful ways, with a particular focus on Black women and girls. Their resources and initiatives are collaborative and they prioritize opportunity, access, validation, and healing.
Loveland Therapy Fund provides financial assistance to Black women and girls nationally seeking therapy. Through partnerships with Therapy for Black Girls, National Queer & Trans Therapists of Color Network, Talkspace and Open Path Collective, Loveland Therapy Fund recipients will have access to a comprehensive list of mental health professionals across the country providing high quality, culturally competent services to Black women and girls.
Latinx Therapy & Speakers
Therapist and speaker directories as well as a podcast, courses & workshops, wellness resources and more for Latinx people.
Asians Do Therapy
A resource to reduce stigma and increase accessibility to therapy for Asian people.
StrongHearts Native Helpline
1-844-7NATIVE (762-8483) is a 24/7 safe, confidential and anonymous domestic and sexual violence helpline for Native Americans and Alaska Native offering culturally-appropriate support and advocacy.
https://strongheartshelpline.org/
More Resources
LGBTQIA+ People
Trans Lifeline
Trans Lifeline provides peer support for our community that's been divested from police since day one. We're run by and for trans people. Services available in English and Spanish. Additional resources available at https://linktr.ee/translifeline
USA: 877-565-8860 or CAN: 877-330-6366
https://translifeline.org/
Call BlackLine
BlackLine is a 24/7 hotline to support, affirm and provide healing to folks who are most impacted by systemic oppression with an LGBTQ+ Black Femme Lens.
Call 1-800-604-5841
https://www.callblackline.com/
Trevor Project
The Trevor Project provides support and resources for LGBTQ youth, including a 24/7 crisis line with trained counselors on call.
Call 1-866-488-7386 or Text START to 678-678 or Chat on the website at https://www.thetrevorproject.org/
Note: The Trevor Project uses non-consensual active rescue, which means they may call the police without the caller's consent. Read more about non-consensual active rescue.
Glimmer
Glimmer’s mission is to empower womxn, QTBIPOC, and the LGBTQIA+ community through sexual and mental health services, and to cultivate joy and expression. Their purpose is to create a safe space where individuals can be connected to personalized and unique therapy services, cultivate sexual and creative expression, and indulge in a collection of womxn and queer-owned businesses tailored to them.
Disabled People
There are few (if any) organizations dedicated entirely to preventing violence against disabled people.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline Website has a page with resources about Abuse in Disability Communities
My recent blog on Disability Justice highlights how a Disability Justice approach is needed to recognize the inherent worth of disabled people. Currently, many people assume that no one would hurt a disabled person. This falls back on myths about disabled people. However, studies show that disabled people are more likely to experience abuse than non-disabled people. Disability justice recognizes that the needs of disabled people aren’t yet socially acceptable and provides the framework to change that.
Statistics on violence against disabled people from the National Coalition against Domestic Violence (NCADV)
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) has resources about an ongoing campaign to stop the use of electric shock torture against disabled people at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts. For more information, visit https://autisticadvocacy.org/stoptheshock/. Disability justice advocate, Lydia X. Z. Brown created a living archive providing more information about these abuses. To view the digital archive visit, https://autistichoya.net/judge-rotenberg-center/.
Bullying Prevention
StopBullying.gov – an official website of the US government
Bullying Prevention from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
Bullying Prevention from Children’s Safety Network (funded by the US Department of Health & Human Services)
Bullying Prevention from the National Association of School Psychologists
Domestic Violence Awareness
National Domestic Violence Hotline Website
The website helps people get help by creating a safety plan, identifying local resources and legal help and offering specific services for Deaf people and Native Americans whose different cultural experiences and experiences of domestic violence demonstrate that a one-size-fits all approach based on a white hearing population is inadequate and further perpetuates harm. The website also helps provide educational resources to identify abuse and support others.
NO MORE
The NO MORE Foundation is dedicated to ending domestic violence and sexual assault by increasing awareness, inspiring action, and fueling culture change.
NO MORE works to amplify and grow the movement to stop and prevent domestic violence and sexual assault, in homes, schools, workplaces and communities around the world by creating and supporting innovative campaigns and partnerships with 1,400 allied organizations, 300 schools, and 75,000 global activists.
Visit their website to find additional local and national organizations where you can get involved to work to end violence.
RAINN
RAINN is the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization.
National Sexual Assault Hotline. Free & Confidential 24/7
Call: 800-656-HOPE or chat online at https://www.rainn.org/
FreeFrom
FreeFrom is a national organization, based in Los Angeles, whose mission is to dismantle the nexus between intimate partner violence and financial insecurity. FreeFrom believes in the creativity, resourcefulness, and power that each survivor has to achieve financial independence and to build communities that support individual, intergenerational and collective healing. We also believe that intimate partner violence is a systemic problem in our society which we are severely lacking the infrastructure to address.
Their programs help address capacity building including integrating financial capacity building services into the existing domestic violence movement.
Read their report Before and Beyond Crisis: What Each of Us Can Do to Create a Long-Term Ecosystem of Support for All Survivors.
How Men Can Help End Violence
Men Can Stop Rape
MCSR's mission is to mobilize men to use their strength for creating cultures free from violence, especially men’s violence against women. Their visions is to institutionalize primary prevention of men’s violence against women through sustained initiatives that generate positive, measurable outcomes in populations throughout the world.
A Call to Men
Vision: Helping create a world where all men and boys are loving and respectful and all women, girls, and those at the margins of the margins are valued and safe
Photo Credit & Description
Photo by Chona Kasinger for Affect the Verb. A Black non-binary person with a cane and a South Asian person in a wheelchair block a neighborhood street while holding up cardboard signs. The photo is shot from behind them.
Publication Date
Originally published on LinkedIn on October 22, 2020. Updated on the blog only on October 15, 2022.
About the Author
Amy E. Harth (she/they) is a white, disabled, queer, non-binary anti-oppression researcher and diversity, equity & inclusion practitioner. They earned a PhD in interdisciplinary studies from Union Institute & University. Her research focuses on media representation.
As principal of Amy Harth Coaching and Consulting, she focuses on ways to dismantle oppressive structures and embrace anti-oppressive frameworks to co-create ways to flourish in our relationships, work and communities.
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