History, Mission and Vision

History

In 2000, a group of residents from the Dorchester neighborhood in Boston, MA came together to address the complex issue of domestic violence where it happens—in our neighborhoods. These residents reached out to the community by knocking on doors and speaking at civic meetings across Dorchester. The message was simple, but the request challenging: work with us to prevent domestic violence. Together we can develop a community driven response and change the norms in our community that allow domestic violence to continue. Reach out to your family, friends and neighbors about domestic violence.

Feedback to our request was clear: addressing domestic violence is a critical issue in our community, and in all communities. Forty percent of community members surveyed by Close to Home knew someone affected by domestic violence.  Over the next two years, volunteers responded by leading presentations at civic meetings, reaching several thousand residents at community meetings and events, and hosting neighborhood “kitchen-table” discussion groups.  In response, Close to Home incorporated as a non-profit organization in 2002. Close to Home’s name comes from our belief that it is the local community that can best provide support and create lasting change on this issue, because it is community members who are experts on what is going on in their communities, and on what kinds of initiatives will be most effective.

Mission

Close to Home’s mission is to foster community-wide responsibility to prevent and reduce the impact of domestic violence.  We are building and supporting networks of community residents and organizations in local neighborhoods that want to take action and address the problem of domestic violence together.  Close to Home believes that domestic violence is a critical community issue and that all community members—youth, residents, families, friends, neighbors, civic leaders, and organizational partners—are essential to designing and implementing the solutions to the problem.

Close to Home seeks to create opportunities for people and organizations to:

• Learn about domestic violence in their community,
• Discuss and reflect on domestic violence in their lives and communities,
• Develop skills to respond to and prevent domestic violence,
• Develop and implement solutions to domestic violence, and
• Build strong meaningful connections with each other.

Close to Home is leveraging the success of our local community engagement work to influence domestic violence prevention practice and policy locally and nationally.