Kit Gruelle
Bio:
Kit Gruelle is a survivor of domestic violence who has worked as an advocate for battered women and their children for almost 30 years. As a renowned community educator, she has trained scores of advocates, criminal justice professionals (law enforcement, prosecutors, magistrates, and judges), health care providers, clergy, legislators, educators, and other allied professionals, and has guest lectured at colleges, universities, medical and law schools, schools of social work and public heath, and departments of sociology, women’s studies, and psychology on violence against women and children.
In 1996, while she was working at Family Violence and Rape Crisis Services in Pittsboro, NC, she created and managed the BRIDGES Program, one of the first Coordinated Community Response (CCR) programs in North Carolina.
In 2012, she graduated from Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina with a BS in Sociology (concentration in gender-based violence).
For the last eighteen years, she has been a Subject Matter Expert and trainer for California POST (Peace Officers Standards and Training), helping develop training films and curricula for first responders, public safety dispatchers, and hostage/crisis negotiators. She has served as an expert witness for battered women in both state and federal court.
She is the subject of Private Violence, an intimate and compelling documentary on domestic violence that premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and premiered on HBO on October 20, 2014.
A new study confirms that three women are killed each day in the United States by an intimate partner. As Domestic Violence Awareness Month draws to a close, the author, an advocate and activist, looks at ways some communities are reducing those numbers.
The NRA is pushing the idea of arming abused women as a solution to domestic violence. The author, a longtime advocate for victims, explains why this position—which is reflected in two new state laws—is misguided and deadly.
