The first Family Justice Center in America opened in San Diego in 2002, with leadership by Casey Gwinn and Gael Strack. In 2003, President George W. Bush announced the creation of the President’s Family Justice Center Initiative, based on their San Diego Family Justice Center model.
The journey towards Alliance for HOPE International began in 1988, when then-Deputy City Attorneys Casey Gwinn and Gael Strack began creating what would eventually become the largest specialized Domestic Violence Unit in America.
By 1993, the San Diego City Attorney’s Domestic Violence Unit was chosen as the model prosecution unit in America by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. The Unit had a staff of 30 prosecutors, investigators, and support staff and was co-located with professionals from seven other local agencies focused on supporting victims of child abuse and domestic violence. The Unit distinguished itself for allowing victims to choose to testify or not, but the cases were prosecuted with or without victim participation if the evidence supported a conviction. Early research found major declines in domestic violence homicides in San Diego, falling from 30 domestic violence homicides per year in 1985 to 22 domestic violence homicides in 1992.
In 1995, after the deaths of two teenagers, Casandra Stewart and Tamara Smith, both victims of prior “choking” incidents, Gael Strack began to analyze more than 300 cases of “choking” sent to the San Diego City Attorney’s Office for prosecution. Her research found that children were present in 50 percent of the cases, that no visible injury existed in 50 percent of the cases, and determined that 99 percent of the suspects were men. Gael’s study evaluating the impact and injuries of non-fatal strangulation was the largest at that time ever done in the world. The study has been called the “seminal study” in the world on strangulation assaults, especially as law enforcement, victim advocates, prosecutors, judges, medical professionals and others began to focus on the significance of strangulation assaults in predicting later homicides of women in intimate partner settings.
In 1996, Casey became the elected City Attorney of San Diego and devoted ten percent of his staff of 350 to the Domestic Violence Unit. He reiterated his call for the creation of the San Diego Family Justice Center and asked the then Assistant City Attorney to lead the planning effort. San Diego Police Chief David Bejarano pledged his support and assigned Lt. Monica Kaiser to work side by side in the planning effort. Casey was the President of the San Diego Domestic Violence Council and asked the 200 agencies on the Council to make the Family Justice Center their number one priority.
In 2002, the first Family Justice Center in America opened in San Diego, with leadership from Casey and Gael. Gael served as the first Family Justice Center Director, overseeing 120 professionals from twenty five onsite partners and twenty five offsite partners in 40,000 square feet in downtown San Diego. Casey and Gael also created the San Diego Family Justice Center Foundation to be the fundraising arm for the Family Justice Center. In addition, Casey founded Camp HOPE San Diego as part of the San Diego Family Justice Center, a camping and mentoring program for children impacted by domestic violence.
Family Justice Center Director Gael focused all the intervention professionals on treating strangulation assaults as their most serious type of domestic violence cases. Domestic violence homicides continued their decline in San Diego and drew the attention of Oprah Winfrey. In January 2003, Oprah Winfrey profiled the San Diego Family Justice Center on her show and City Attorney Casey Gwinn was on the national broadcast for two days. In October 2003, President George W. Bush announced the creation of the President’s Family Justice Center Initiative, based on the San Diego Family Justice Center. He appropriated $20 million to start fifteen additional Family Justice Centers and asked Casey to lead this effort after leaving office in 2004.
In 2006, Casey created the National Family Justice Center Alliance as a program of the San Diego Family Justice Center Foundation in response to the increasing demand for technical assistance from Family Justice Centers across the world. In 2008, the San Diego Family Justice Center Foundation became the National Family Justice Center Alliance.
The National Family Justice Center Alliance evolved as it created The Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention, the VOICES Survivor Advocacy Network, and Camp HOPE America. In 2015, the National Family Justice Center Alliance changed its name to Alliance for HOPE International bringing together all its work in a holistic and hope-centered approach to helping adult and child survivors of domestic violence.
Alliance for HOPE International has continued to grow into one of the most influential advocacy and social change organizations in the country and around the world. We are regularly hired to help local communities plan and sustain Family Justice Centers. We serve as the umbrella and resource center of the Family Justice Center movement, which has grown to over 300 Centers worldwide.
In 2018, the Alliance began helping law enforcement agencies and families in suspicious death cases where a woman dies after a history of domestic violence, often including prior strangulation assault. Growing from the Alliance’s review of suspicious death cases where deaths initially look like a suicide, overdose, or accident, The Justice Project became a formal program of the Alliance in 2024. The Justice Project’s nationally recognized Hidden Homicides Course is now being taught in the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Advocacy Center and offered to local communities as our four-day training.
DomesticShelters.org merged with the Alliance in 2023. DomesticShelters.org is the largest online resource in the U.S. for survivors of domestic violence and a leading free training resource for victim advocates working in community-based domestic violence organizations. DomesticShelters.org has over 2.7 million visits each year to its resources and connects survivors to shelters and Family Justice Centers throughout the United States and Canada.
The Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention is the leading training and outreach organization in the world on the handling of fatal and non-fatal strangulation assaults. Partially due to the work of the Alliance and its program of the Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention, felony strangulation laws now exist in all 50 states, as well as being included in the federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), many tribal codes, and legal statutes of other countries.
Camp HOPE America has been identified as a powerful criminal justice reform method through its year-round camping and mentoring program. With Camp HOPE America, children growing up impacted by domestic violence and the force multipliers of racism, poverty, and historic oppression are not going to jail or prison. Instead, they are going to college and vocational schools, breaking the generational cycle of abuse.
The Alliance is also the leading organization in America focused on hope-centered and kindhearted approaches to meeting the needs of adult and child survivors – teaching courses on the science of hope across the country and around the world.
Today, the Alliance’s programs all connect to the origins of the Family Justice Center framework and what works to increase victim safety and offender accountability.
Alliance for HOPE International Programs:
- The Family Justice Center Alliance
- The Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention
- Camp HOPE America
- DomesticShelters.org
- The VOICES Survivor Advocacy Network
- The Justice Project
The Alliance, our work, as well as the leadership and expertise of Casey Gwinn, Gael Strack, Catherine Johnson, and others on our team have been featured on Good Morning America, The Oprah Winfrey Show, CBS The Early Show, Dateline, CNN, Fox, the New York Times, USA Today, and a host of other print and electronic news outlets.
The Family Justice Center Alliance evolved as other programs such as The Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention and Camp HOPE America were created. In 2015, Alliance for HOPE International was branded as a parent organization, bringing together all of our work in a holistic and hope-centered infrastructure.
