RISE ⁠—which stands for Reimagining Intimacy through Social Engagement—works to ensure community-based gun violence prevention efforts have more tools and resources to prevent and respond to intimate partner violence. Gun violence and intimate partner violence are often viewed as separate problems requiring different responses, but neighborhoods impacted by high rates of gun violence also have the highest levels of reported domestic violence incidents. Access to a gun makes it five times more likely that a partner experiencing abuse will be killed.

The RISE Project is part of New York City’s anti-violence Crisis Management System and is run in partnership with the Mayor’s Office to Prevent Gun Violence. On this episode of In Practice, three members of the RISE team—Hailey Nolasco, director, Al-Tabar Hudgins, uptown coordinator, and Karolin Betances, downtown coordinator—talk to Rob Wolf about the origins of the initiative, how it differs from a more conventional law enforcement approach, and how they engage people in conversations about the important but hard-to-talk-about topic of intimate partner violence.