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New York University














The Center on Violence and Recovery

New Book
Violent Partners

Linda G. Mills:
Violent Partners

New Movie
Truth Be Told

Linda G. Mills:
Truth Be Told

About the Center

The Center on Violence and Recovery is dedicated to advancing knowledge on the causes of intimate and community violence and trauma, and developing innovative solutions that promote healing. The Center conducts research, offers technical assistance, and raises public awareness on a wide range of topics related to violence prevention.

The Center does this by:

    • Conducting research on interventions to violence that galvanize people to draw on personal and community-based resources to heal;
    • Offering technical assistance to community partners interested in creatively transforming violence;
    • Raising awareness about violence generally, with the hope of interrupting its transmission from one generation to the next.

Background

Founder Linda G. Mills has been working on issues related to violence and recovery for over 20 years. Whether it is developing a resiliency program following the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, funded by Project Liberty, or designing a research study supported by the National Science Foundation comparing a typical batterer intervention program with an innovative restorative justice approach, her work always challenges traditional boundaries and evokes new perspectives. Influenced by deeply personal narratives, Mills encourages us to reflect on the importance of traumatic memory in our everyday lives.

As an author, Mills’ abuse memoir, and latest book, Violent Partners: A Breakthrough Plan for Ending the Cycle of Abuse, develops a new theory and presents a comprehensive list of alternative interventions for treating domestic violence. As a co-producer and co-writer, Mills' latest film project, Truth Be Told, traces the roots of her family’s harrowing journey from Vienna to California during the Nazi occupation of Austria and its radiating impact on four generations of family.

About the Staff

Linda G. Mills, Ph.D, J.D., L.C.S.W. Executive Director, is professor of social work, public policy and law at New York University, where she also serves as Senior Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and University Life. She is the author of numerous articles and books on intimate abuse, including Violent Partners: A Breakthrough Plan for Ending the Cycle of Abuse, (Basic, 2008), Insult to Injury: Rethinking Our Responses to Intimate Abuse (Princeton, 2003), and "Killing Her Softly: Intimate Abuse and the Violence of State Intervention," published in Harvard Law Review (1999). Her work as a producer has resulted in numerous projects, including The Reality Show: NYU, and Truth Be Told. In 2002, Mills received a Telly award for a training video adaptation of her book, The Heart of Intimate Abuse.

In 2004, Dr. Mills founded the Center on Violence and Recovery to study and understand violence in its many forms and to develop alternative research-based interventions to address the long-term effects of trauma. Her work has been cited extensively and has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times, USA Today and Glamour.

Briana Barocas, Ph.D., Director of Research, oversees the Center's research initiatives and is also an adjunct faculty member at NYU’s Silver School of Social Work. Dr. Barocas is particularly interested in disaster mental health in workplace settings. In 2007, she was selected to participate in the Disaster Mental Health Research Mentoring Program. The program, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, seeks to increase the quality and utility of disaster research by informing, instructing, advising, and mentoring disaster researchers. Prior to joining the Center, Dr. Barocas was a consultant and researcher at the Center on Social Policy and Practice in the Workplace at Columbia University, where she oversaw a number of research projects on employment policy and practice issues and workplace diversity. Dr. Barocas is the former Assistant Director of Cornell University's Institute for Women and Work at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, where she was actively involved in various projects related to labor and management issues and gender relations in the changing American workplace. She holds a Ph.D. in Social Policy and Policy Analysis from Columbia University, a M.S. in Gender Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a B.S. in Human Development and Family Studies from Cornell University.

Yael Shy, Esq., Director of Development and Education, coordinates the Center’s relationships with its community partners and donors, and is responsible for the Center’s public education and outreach efforts. She is an alumna of Northeastern University School of Law, where she won the PS Law Net Pro-Bono Publico Honorable Mention award for founding and chairing the Society for Restorative Justice – one of the most active and community-engaged organizations on campus. Ms. Shy has done restorative justice work in the District Court of Auckland, New Zealand and Milwaukee’s District Attorney’s office. Prior to attending law school, Ms. Shy worked for three years at the Third Wave Foundation in New York City. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from New York University, with a B.A. in Sociology and Gender Studies.

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE

The Center offers technical assistance including consultation in program development, research design and implementation, training, and curriculum development.

If you would like more information about the center’s technical assistance related to these programs, contact cvr.info@nyu.edu.

The Center’s research and programs are made possible through the generous support of: