TC Novato:

TC's flagship project is the Novato Project, a five-year demonstration project in Novato, CA, a city of 50,000 residents. This project unites multi-level efforts across all strata of the community to move Novato residents' knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors away from failing to challenge violence against women and girls, and into greater alignment with an agenda to hold violent men and institutions accountable. By fostering this shift in norms and by increasing the Novato community's willingness to take action to prevent abuse, TC effectively promotes safety, justice and equality for women and girls.

Transforming Communities in Novato supports and provides leadership for a wide range of community actions on the issue of violence against women and girls. These actions include: campaigns for the retraction of offensive advertising; a monthly newspaper column; assisting the Novato Police Department in reviewing and improving their domestic violence policies and staffing; providing training and leadership for the School District's diversity committee; mobilizing a community response to hate crimes; supporting a Teen CAT (Community Action Team) whose members carry out a teen peer education project and host a weekly internet "chat room" for discussion and problem-solving around relationship issues.

The Novato project also constitutes a real-world laboratory to methodically evaluate a community-based prevention program. This research is guided by an internationally-recognized committee of researchers in the domestic violence field. Focus groups, ethnographic techniques, and survey research methods will be employed to gauge the impact of the community-based organizing initiatives on the community's social norms. The Novato project is featured in the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence series on promising practices in the domestic violence field.