Centered community power and healing to prevent domestic violence and advance health equity.

2025 marked the seventh and final year of Safety & Healing in Networks of Equity (SHINE) in its current form. According to the evaluation findings, SHINE generated meaningful and lasting shifts by building trusted places of safety and connection, mobilizing resources and economic supports, and advancing upstream community-centered policies and programs that address the community conditions that contribute to domestic violence. Across all SHINE communities, collaboratives strengthened community capacity and power by cultivating youth and adult leaders, deepening cross-sector networks that reframed domestic violence as a shared community responsibility, and growing anchor organizations into trusted, influential hubs for equity-centered collaboration. SHINE local partners indicated that Prevention Institute’s trust-based approach, flexible funding, learning orientation, and in-person convenings were essential supports that enabled authentic community-led progress. SHINE demonstrated that community trust, strong relational infrastructure, personal and community healing, and a steady commitment to keeping upstream prevention at the center of the work can meaningfully address the contributors to domestic violence and strengthen relational safety and health equity. We also spent time exploring pathways for the next phase of SHINE, including an effort to promote relational safety, mutual thriving, and prevention of gender-based violence in Houston that builds on California learnings while deeply rooting efforts in Houston’s cultures, relationships, assets, and challenges.

Funder: Blue Shield of California Foundation Image by Prevention Institute.