Happy New Year, to all our friends and supporters around the world!  We wish you a year blessed with fulfilled expectations, realized dreams, and stunning accomplishments.

As we begin 2012, the Family Justice Center movement is alive and well.  This next year, more communities and agencies will look to add partners, expand service models, or develop multi-agency, multi-disciplinary Centers to serve victims of domestic violence, child abuse, sexual assault, elder abuse, and/or human trafficking than ever before.  This next year we will likely see our 100th Family Justice Center open.  We will work with committed police officers, prosecutors, advocates, elected officials, business, and community leaders in communities around the world.  We will meet survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault who have overcome violence and abuse and now celebrate safety and freedom.

In 2012, we will see many of our initiatives thrive and evolve including: The California Family Justice Initiative sponsored by the Blue Shield of California Foundation; The National Strangulation Training Institute, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women; our Teen Outreach and Engagement Project and our Engaging Men Project funded by the Verizon Foundation; our partnership with the newest Family Justice Center in America – the  One Safe Place Family Justice Center of Tarrant County (Fort Worth, Texas); our partnership with the New Orleans Family Justice Center, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women; our strategic planning and training services contracts with communities across the country; and our Mexican initiative, funded by USAID (through MSI), supporting the creation of 12 Centros de Justicia para las Mujeres across Mexico. We will pursue new state and regional initiatives to help develop networks of Family Justice Centers in an approach similar to work with Blue Shield of California Foundation and the California Family Justice Initiative.  And we will look to develop more international projects in Europe and Asia.

We will host another International Family Justice Center Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana in April with teams coming from across the United States and around the world.  We will re-brand the National Family Justice Center Alliance online presence with new websites for the Alliance, the California Family Justice Center Initiative, the FJC Legal Network, Camp HOPE, and the National Strangulation Training Institute.  We will kick-off our new online, distance learning courses with continuing education credits for social workers, therapists, attorneys, and other licensed professionals.  We will expand our webcasting and online capabilities for video teleconferencing and video webinars.  And we will host 15-20 national webinars through the course of the year.

We will dream bigger with all of you than we have ever dreamed before.  We will work harder to reach underserved populations and communities than in the past.  We will focus more on making new friends and expanding our base of supporters and allies in this work to reduce and prevent domestic violence, child abuse, sexual assault, elder abuse, and human trafficking.

So, as we look forward to 2012, we thank you for your support, friendship, and participation in the work of the Alliance and express our deep and abiding appreciation for all you do to help stop domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse, elder abuse, and human trafficking.  You are our allies, friends, co-workers, and supporters and we are forever grateful to stand with you in this work.

Casey and Gael (and the entire National Family Justice Center Alliance Team)