Tagline reads - Honoring People, Celebrating Community, Challenging Injustice

Our Programs: Transforming Transition

Coming Home

Building the Beloved Community

We help people as they reintegrate into society and become engaged members of the community. Coming Home brings together a cohort of formerly incarcerated participants and volunteers from the larger community for weekly meals and sessions. Workshops focus on skill building and personal development activities that reinforce restorative dialogue, goal setting, critical thinking, understanding, healthy relationships, forgiveness, networking, building resilience, and overcoming trauma.

“Welcome to Coming Home”

  • I didn't know there was a place like this. A place where you could come, be welcomed, and really get the individual support you need with good, caring people.

    —Frank, Coming Home participant

  • I never would have imagined that people from such different lived experiences could come together and be in community with each other and with such mutual respect, honesty and support for one another.

    —Pat, Coming Home volunteer

  • Through the Positive Intelligence (PQ) workshop I learned how to recognize and overcome self-sabotaging thoughts, manage stress more effectively, and cultivate a positive outlook even in challenging situations.

    —Alex

  • One desire, constantly expressed on the part of the program participants, was a very basic one: simply to be seen and valued as human beings. That was the most important message I got, and I think that anyone can get from another person.

    —Susan

  • I saw very quickly that people are more alike than they are different. I learned that I have as much to learn from my partner (or more) than he has from me; and I do continue learning from him.

    —Nancy

  • Hard as it may seem, I’ve seen, in smaller communities, such as Communities for Healing & Justice, the beloved community.

    —Eric

  • I can't believe I am in safe housing. I can't thank you and the others enough. I need to pinch myself and remind myself that it is okay.

    —Gregory, Harlem resident

HISTORY of  COMING HOME

In the fall of 2009, Dr. Dawn Ravella, in partnership with Hudson Link and Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness & Housing, launched Coming Home at the Reformed Church of Bronxville. The Coming Home journey began.

Coming House Supports individuals reintegrating into community following incarceration. Coming Home also engages and mobilizes the larger community around systemic issues within the criminal legal system. Each cycle includes community meals with spiritual reflection, goal-setting, workshops with partners, life skills sessions, advocacy, storytelling, and healing in supportive environment.

In 2011 Fordham University’s Beck Institute on Religion and Poverty began to document, research and promote Coming Home as a replicable, trauma-informed evidence based program model. To date, Coming Home has been replicated at twelve houses of worship.

In 2020, Dawn, along with the Coming Home  leadership team, brought Coming Home to Emmaus House Harlem.

In 2023, we created Communities for Healing and Justice to expand our efforts for deeper healing, create systemic change, and support many initiatives of our alumni.

Since inception, we have celebrated the participation of more than 250 people, and transformed the lives of countless others.

Our Restorative Practices are Rooted in Research

The Beck Institute for Religion and Poverty at Fordham University Graduate School of Social Services has researched the Coming Home program and found statistically significant reduction in trauma scores and increased coping skills.

Responsive to community needs, we offer programming addressing the whole person:

  • Credible messenger training and support

  • Health, wellness, and mental fitness:

    • Yoga

    • Communi-teas

    • Arts workshops

    • Healing of Memories®

    • Stop the Bleed® workshop

    • Positive Intelligence®

  • Advocacy days

  • Conversations toward understanding and unity

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