Pausing Stand Up Colorado

We’d like to let our followers know that we’ll be pausing Stand Up Colorado activities and communications for 2023. As many may know, we’ve experienced considerable transition the past several years. Pausing the campaign will give our staff a chance to regroup, and define and recommit to what our violence prevention work can look like moving forward. We want to be sure we’re giving prevention work the attention and resourcing it needs to be successful, which we haven’t been fully able to do for Stand Up Colorado over the past couple years. 

That being said, even faced with many challenges, the campaign has accomplished a lot since it launched in 2017. Here’s a glance at some of what the campaign has achieved: 

• Years of research and stakeholder work went into setting the foundation for the campaign and its messaging, even before it ever began. 

• In 2017 Stand Up Colorado launched Colorado’s first awareness campaign to shift the narrative around relationship abuse and encourage behavior change among people who use abusive behaviors.
• Our Instagram page holds a robust catalog of educational content related to preventing violence and seeking help to change abusive behaviors. 
• We created various digital ads over the years to encourage Coloradans to take action in preventing and ending relationship violence. We reviewed popular TV shows and films to determine what they do – and don’t – teach us about healthy relationships and abuse. 
• A multi-disciplinary group of stakeholders and campaign partners developed a best practice guide in English and Spanish for treatment providers and other professionals working with young people who use abusive behaviors.
• In the past year, we connected with A Call For Change Helpline and have been referring our audiences seeking help in behavior change to their team of trained responders. Several Violence Free Colorado staff also received their responder training. 

Many of the people and partners who contributed most to Stand Up Colorado or helped launch it are no longer on Violence Free Colorado staff, or were external to our agency, so we want to recognize all the work they put into the campaign as we make this decision to pause. We’re grateful to everyone who’s worked with Stand Up Colorado in some capacity – whether as a partner site, staff person, or volunteer. Many individuals and organizations across the state gave their time and expertise to give input on the campaign before, during, and after its launch – this guidance was invaluable in shaping campaign messaging and making Stand Up Colorado what it was. Thank you too to all the partner sites who amplified Stand Up Colorado’s messaging, made your own prevention videos and swag, and furthered violence prevention work in your own communities. To our followers, donors, and anyone who shared our social media content, participated in or contributed to our videos, took the Stand Up Colorado pledge, or talked to a loved one about healthy relationships – we thank you for your participation and commitment to ending relationship violence in Colorado! And finally, a special shout out to Ellen Stein-Wallace, who was our Campaign Manager for several years and did incredible research, strategic planning, outreach, and organizing for Stand Up Colorado. 

We do mean for this to be a pause, not an end, to our violence prevention work at Violence Free Colorado. Whether we resume the Stand Up Colorado campaign or pursue another approach to prevention, please keep your eye out for updates from us in the future about violence prevention. We’re excited about the opportunity this pause can provide us in terms of strategizing about this important work. In the meantime: 

• If you have any questions or feedback, please contact us at communityimpact@violencefreeco.org.
• For people using abusive behaviors seeking support to change their behaviors, and any friends, family, or professionals wanting to support another person’s behavior change, please continue to contact A Call For Change Helpline at 877-898-3411. Remember….relationship violence is not ok but it is ok to ask for help to change your behaviors.
• Our Stand Up Colorado newsletter updates will be on pause. Please sign up for Violence Free Colorado’s newsletter if you haven’t already. 
• We will keep our Instagram page and website up for now, for the educational content they provide. 
• You’ll still be able to find our archive of Stand Up Colorado ads and media reviews on Violence Free Colorado’s YouTube page. 
• Please continue having conversations with your friends, family, coworkers, and more about healthy relationships! 

Thank you again for your support,

Violence Free Colorado and Stand Up Colorado Staff