Workplaces throughout the United States are struggling to understand and address the issue of workplace violence. The Workplace Action Team of The Initiatives for Violence-Free Families and Communities in Ramsey and Hennepin Counties, Minnesota, is a group of Minneapolis-St. Paul professionals who have worked together since 1990 to create and implement tools that work, having built them around a comprehensive strategy of developing violence-free, respectful work environments. The purpose of this article is to describe the community-wide partnership that the Workplace Action Team represents, outline the principles the team has developed that underscore respectful, violence-free work environments, and demonstrate the tools and strate-
Family violence is a pervasive problem locally, nationally, and worldwide. Since 1990, staff from Saint Paul-Ramsey County (Minnesota) Public Health have worked with hundreds of community members and organizations in a unique partnership approach to preventing violence. The process of developing and sustaining this unique partnership is described, as well impacts and outcomes from work developed and implemented over 25 years of sustained efforts. Implications for practice in community organizing and partnership, violence prevention, public health, and adherence to evidence- and research-based best practice models are discussed.
Sex trafficking and sexual exploitation are tragedies affecting people across the United States and throughout our world. Over 34,700 sex trafficking cases in the US were reported to the National Sex Trafficking Hotline between 2007-2017, while globally, the International Labor Organization estimates 4.8 million people are being sexually exploited. In order to try to reduce and eventually eliminate the demand for sex trafficking and exploitation, Breaking Free, a survivor-led agency in Saint Paul, Minnesota began a partnership with Building Peaceful Community, a Minnesota-based violence prevention organization, to transform its former "John School" into "Men Breaking Free." This new approach, started in June 2018, is showing promising, transformative, healing results both with men referred to the program for having been arrested for trying to purchase sex from another human being, as well as with Breaking Free staff, survivors, and community partners. This paper describes the change from John School to Men Breaking Free, results from the first 14 months of this new approach, and potential implications for more effectively reducing demand and reducing sex trafficking, locally, nationally and world-wide.
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