CAPACITY
BUILDING​
We all have the potential to create liberational impact.
WHY CAPACITY BUILDING?
Organizations are most impactful when they are well-resourced. Praxis provides resources to help shape that impact. With our array of trainings, practical tools, and resources, we support organizations in identifying a range of actions to strengthen their social justice approach.
HOW WE DO IT
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Advocacy is the backbone of the movement to end gender-based violence. This movement was started for survivors by survivor-advocates, but their expertise is often overlooked in change efforts. Praxis recenters advocacy in our movement by providing avenues for advocates to share their experience, offering training to enhance advocacy skills, and promoting advocacy as activism.
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The well-being of those on the front lines of creating change, from grassroots organizers to executive directors, is crucial to our fight against gender-based violence and oppression. We emphasize practices that prioritize rest and create protected spaces for support. Connecting changemakers at all levels cultivates resiliency for themselves and survivors.
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Enhancing Organizations
For changemakers to drive meaningful change, they need supportive organizational structures. We encourage organizations to center social justice principles in their work. This approach not only supports their staff but also creates lasting, impactful change for the survivors they work with and in their broader communities.
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Strengthening Rural Communities
Rural advocates and systems workers face a unique set of challenges. Recognizing the pivotal role rural organizations play in combatting gender-based violence, we provide tailored support and innovative consultation to further cultivate the capacity of rural communities across the country.​​
​​​TRAININGS
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Innovating for Impact
Innovating for Impact is a training for advocacy program leadership that explores how to establish and maintain organizational structures that promote social justice advocacy. Participants learn how to evaluate and change their organizations, promote wellness for staff as an essential component of incorporating social justice into their organization’s work, and facilitate opportunities for program innovation.
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Community Assessment Institute
CAI teaches the Praxis Institutional Analysis process to produce a roadmap for institutional change. The training examines how institutions create hurdles for survivors, particularly within the criminal legal system. Participants learn practical methods and strategies to assess and improve their own community's response to gender-based violence.
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Justice Architects: A Systems Advocacy Forum
Justice Architects is a training focused on addressing systemic inequities that affect survivors along gender, race, class, and language lines. The training teaches how to apply the Praxis Institutional Analysis (IA) method in a social justice context. Grounded in the experiences of survivors, IA pinpoints where things go wrong in systems and develops recommendations for survivor-centered solutions.
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Seeds of Change Rural Training Summit
Seeds of Change brings together rural changemakers from across the nation to spotlight emerging trends and best practices in rural responses to gender-based violence. This training equips participants with targeted strategies for advancing social justice in the face of the complex realities of rural living.​​​
​​TOOLS
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​Parenting Through Violence
The Parenting Through Violence Toolkit is designed to generate discussion and reflection. Parenting Through Violence is not a traditional parenting curriculum, the practical questions guide advocacy programs to explore how their work to support survivors who are parents promotes social justice. Although this toolkit was originally designed for rural communities, it is applicable in multiple settings. Download the Parenting Through Violence Toolkit. [link to library spot]
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Rural Digest
The Rural Digest is a bi-monthly e-newsletter where we proudly showcase the best and promising practices, research, and training assistance tailored to support rural efforts in ending gender-based violence. Grounded in the lived realities of rural grantees and the survivors they serve, each issue features replicable intervention models, strategies, and the latest insights to inform your work as the field evolves. Check out past rural digests​
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​Praxis Safety and Accountability Audit Toolkit
This how-to guide has been used by hundreds of communities to assess their institutional responses to gender-based violence. The Praxis Institutional Analysis method has been applied to a range of systems to improve outcomes for survivors of gender-based violence and reduce the potential harm caused by institutions. Learn more about the IA Toolkit.
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Story of Rachel
Story of Rachel depicts the events set in motion by one survivors’ call to 911: from the criminal court case, child protection investigation, protection-order petition, to her ultimate eviction. It is a powerful illustration of the complex relationship between survivors and the systems they turn to for help. Purchase the Story of Rachel for your organization.
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Story of Sameera
Story of Sameera shows what happens when an immigrant survivor is drawn into systems that are meant to help, following a neighbor’s call to 911. Sameera faces multiple challenges from systems, family, and community that complicate the possibility of moving toward a violence-free life. Purchase the Story of Sameera for your organization.
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Make the Call: Advocacy-Initiated Response to Domestic Violence Crimes Toolkit
Make the Call is a resource designed to help community-based advocacy organizations explore, adapt, and implement the Advocacy-Initiated Response (AIR) model. This toolkit equips programs to build effective, survivor-centered responses that enhance safety, and improve survivor outcomes in the wake of law enforcement intervention. Explore Make the Call.
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Ganawenim ingiw abinoojiinyag - Indian Child Welfare Act Institutional Analysis Guidebook
This guidebook, developed by The Center for Regional and Tribal Child Welfare Studies and Praxis, is designed to support public child welfare agencies to analyze and strengthen how they are structured to implement the full spirit and intent of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). The primary audience is leaders in public child welfare systems and community/tribal advocates. Download the guidebook.
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Essential Skills in Coordinating Your Community Response to Domestic Violence: An E-Learning Course for CCR Coordinators
Enhancing Your Community’s Response to Domestic Violence is a self-paced, online course that teaches key steps in effective leadership and essential skills in systems change advocacy on behalf of survivors of gender-based violence. Learn more and purchase the course here.
ENHANCE YOUR CAPACITY
Praxis collaborates with nonprofits, state, local, and federal government agencies to extend support and share our expertise across diverse projects and communities.
We offer tailored training, webinars, and support services exclusively for your organization or community. Whether you need assistance implementing the PASC, conducting focus groups or community assessments, or guidance on utilizing our tools, we are here to help.