Safe & Equitable Communities

California Safe & Equitable Communities Roundtable

State of Equity partners with Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ) and the California Strategic Growth Council to host the Safe & Equitable Communities Roundtable, a convening space for state government staff to foster collaboration and bring community-led violence-prevention solutions to the forefront. The Roundtable is a project of the California Health in All Policies Task Force and participants include state staff who work in public health, social services, education, transportation, environment and climate policy, energy, land use planning, parks, and more, whose work all touches the issue of safe and equitable communities.

The Safe & Equitable Communities Roundtable envisions a California state government that operates holistically and in close partnership with people who have been most harmed by historic and current structural injustices to achieve the conditions to experience community safety and community wealth for all people who reside in California.

The Roundtable uses several approaches to deepen California state government’s commitment to community safety with a racial justice lens:

• • • Develop a narrative change strategy that activates a shift within California state government leaders and workers to internalize a reality of shared fate, shared humanity, and abundance.
    • Design opportunities to collaborate with and support existing internal champions within California state government who can practice innovation-inside-of-government to advance the shared vision of this collaboration.
    • Identify and act on current opportunities to shift policy and practice to advance community safety and community justice priorities as already established by communities most directly impacted by the harms of current public safety practices.
    • Encourage and enable local governments to support community-led alternatives via guidelines, promising practices, etc.

This work is guided by many subject matter experts including the California Department of Public Health, Prevention Institute, and the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color.

“At CURYJ, we believe those closest to the problem are also closest to the solutions. The Safe and Equitable Communities Roundtable is a space where directly impacted people can engage in an exchange with government employees as we work to strengthen and shift narratives regarding community safety.” – Ray’Von Jones, CURYJ Dream Beyond Bar Program Manager. ”

Ray’Von Jones, CURYJ Dream Beyond Bar Program Manager. ”

Christina N. Teixeira, California Civil Rights Department

Community-led partnerships in practice

Communities around the country are paving new pathways through community-government partnerships to advance police-alternatives and build safe communities. The National Offices of Violence Prevention Network is a great resource for learning, networking, and other supports.

Community-Led Partnerships for Violence Prevention in California