Legislation alone doesn't heal communities. FCC builds programs that develop leaders, interrupt violence, and transform civic culture from the ground up.
This program trains Hartford residents with lived experience in the criminal justice system to serve as mentors and community interveners for individuals at highest risk of gun violence. It is grounded in restorative justice — the belief that people who have survived the system are uniquely positioned to reach those still caught inside it.
Advanced leadership development for graduates of foundational credible messenger training. The Leadership Academy deepens capacity to drive systems change, build coalitions, and lead community-based violence intervention work across Connecticut.
Cultural Abolition is FCC's original framework for community healing and civic transformation. It examines the cultural systems, narratives, and normalized harms that sustain mass incarceration and disenfranchisement — asking communities to name and dismantle the conditions that perpetuate them, not just the laws. James Jeter leads these workshops throughout Connecticut at colleges, community organizations, and civic gatherings — bringing together directly impacted people, students, organizers, and institutional allies.
Funded by a CT Health Foundation grant, FCC runs civic education workshops at Connecticut community colleges, teaching students their voting rights and how disenfranchisement laws have historically excluded directly impacted residents.
In partnership with the Connecticut Secretary of the State's Office and the Department of Correction (SOTS-DOC partnership, launched September 2024), FCC runs voter registration drives inside Connecticut correctional facilities, ensuring eligible residents are registered before they return home.
Founded in August 2020 at Dwight Hall, Yale, the Civic Allyship Initiative connects Yale students and directly impacted organizers around shared civic education and voter engagement work.
