Belonging & local knowledge
Recognize people, trust, relationships, history, skills, programs, and place.
Organizing · Community Safety · Civic Power
Building the Conditions for Durable Safety and Shared Power
People build power. Together, we make communities safer.
The Rehoboth Project equips leaders, aligns civic systems, and strengthens the infrastructure communities need to sustain peace over time.
A working method
OrganizeParticipateAlignSustain
01 / ApproachFrom concern to lasting influence
Safety cannot rest on one program.
Community violence intervention saves lives. Lasting safety also depends on organized communities, responsive institutions, and the civic power to sustain change beyond a single initiative or funding cycle.
TRP helps partners make those connections practical: map the local ecosystem, identify where coordination breaks down, develop shared leadership, and move from analysis to action.
02 / Civic CapacityPresence → Power → Permanence
A continuum, not a checklist.
Presence → Power → Permanence names one important arc in this work: recognize the assets already held, organize relationships into public influence, and build structures that survive a grant or a leadership change. It is part of a wider cross-sector continuum. Faith communities can be a powerful entry point, alongside neighborhood groups, violence intervention teams, schools, health systems, and local government.
Presence
Recognize and connectParticipation & voice
Make it possible for affected residents to shape the questions and choices.
Power
Organize and influenceLeadership & organizing
Develop leaders, relationships, strategy, and the ability to act together.
Civic intelligence
Bring lived experience, research, and public analysis into shared decisions.
Civic power & agency
Shape policy, resources, institutional practice, and public priorities.
Permanence
Align and sustainCross-sector alignment
Connect roles, referrals, planning, data, budgets, and accountability.
Durable safety
Coordinate systems so peace, care, opportunity, and stability can endure.
Stewardship & continuity
Keep local capacity, ownership, and shared responsibility through change.
Use it as a map, not a staircase. Communities can enter at different points, build several capacities at once, or lose ground when conditions change. The question is what must be strengthened next.
Read it alongside the Durable Safety Index. The continuum helps describe how collective civic capacity develops. The Index assesses how well the eight safety pillars function and connect.
03 / Durable SafetyEight connected foundations
Build the conditions that let safety endure.
Durable Safety is TRP’s framework for aligning the systems people rely on. It gives communities and institutions a common way to assess capacity, find gaps, and set priorities together.
“Programs may interrupt violence. Only aligned civic systems can sustain peace.”Power Lab · Juard M. Barnes
CVI infrastructure
People, partnerships, and stable capacity for intervention.
Strategic public safety
Public systems accountable to the safety residents need.
Trauma and health systems
Care and recovery connected across clinical and community settings.
Economic mobility
Pathways to material stability and shared opportunity.
Youth development
Relationships, learning, and meaningful room to lead.
Faith and civic leadership
Moral voice and public responsibility brought into the work.
Civic power and community agency
Participation that can influence public decisions.
Justice transition and reentry
Support and connection through return from incarceration.
Eight systems. One civic ecosystem.
The wheel places Civic Power and Community Agency at the center of an aligned public-safety system. Each pillar has a distinct role; the work is to connect them around what residents need.
Communities can begin with faith assets, resident leadership, CVI, health, education, or another local strength. The goal is to build shared influence and working relationships across the whole ecosystem.
The Durable Safety Index
Rate each of eight pillars · 1–5CapacityCan it function? Resources, staffing, operational maturity, and stable funding.
AccessWho can reach it? Geographic coverage, demographic reach, and equity of service.
QualityHow well does it perform? Standards, training, evidence-informed practice, and consistency.
IntegrationHow well does it connect? Referral pathways, shared strategies, data, and joint planning.
Alignment is the multiplier. A separate cross-pillar reading looks at shared planning, data coordination, cross-sector leadership, and policy and budget alignment. Strong systems that work in isolation can remain fragile; alignment turns capacity into compound impact.
A sequenced assessment process
Before scoring the ecosystem, determine whether the city is ready to assess it.
Understand the starting point
Review leadership alignment, existing safety assets, coordination, community trust, data, and capacity to act. If key conditions are missing, establish a focused readiness pathway first.
Assess the eight pillars
When the jurisdiction is ready, examine capacity, access, quality, and integration across the Durable Safety ecosystem, using evidence and local knowledge.
Turn findings into action
Set priorities, align leadership and resources, and build a practical path for implementation, learning, and sustained accountability.
TRP can be retained to facilitate the readiness scan and lead the full assessment. Residents, practitioners, and cross-sector partners help validate findings and shape what happens next.
Read the framework
Durable Safety Field Paper 2026
The full paper sets out the eight-pillar framework, the Index, the roadmap, and the operating practices that connect systems over time.
Open or download the field paper (PDF)Scoring note. The composite score bands in this 2026 paper are developmental guidance. The paper does not yet specify a complete aggregation method; the bands should not be used to rank cities or make direct cross-city comparisons. Interpret findings by pillar and dimension, with evidence and local validation.
04 / IUPBLearning built for action
Study power. Practice it together.
Communities do not lack capacity; they lack the infrastructure to convert that capacity into lasting power.
The Interdisciplinary University for Power Building is The Rehoboth Project’s formation space and civic learning infrastructure. It brings organizers, faith leaders, public health practitioners, policymakers, educators, and community leaders together to learn, practice, and build. Rather than offering one-off trainings or isolated programs, IUPB integrates organizing, research, policy, and narrative around real public challenges.
Why IUPB exists. Communities face overlapping challenges: interpersonal violence, political polarization, economic instability, mental health strain, and declining trust in institutions. Lasting responses must be community-led, cross-sector, and grounded in lived experience. IUPB helps leaders understand systems, align strategy, build relationships across difference, and strengthen the civic infrastructure for lasting change.
What makes it different. IUPB is interdisciplinary, relational, systems-focused, power-centered, and noncompetitive. It connects and strengthens existing organizations rather than adding another silo. Its ethos is rooted in belonging, shared power, collective responsibility, and Ubuntu: “I am because we are.”
Three connected learning and practice spaces
Power LabOrganizing and campaign practice
Power Lab develops the organizing practice behind civic power. Participants build a base, analyze power, develop leaders, and shape campaigns around local concerns. One- or two-day intensives create a shared foundation; campaign accompaniment helps participants apply the tools to live struggles and decisions.
Praxis TableFrom civic power to public policy and institutional change
Grounded in praxis—the ongoing relationship between reflection, learning, and action—the Praxis Table brings community knowledge, research, organizing, and institutional expertise to a live public challenge. Participants define the issue, examine evidence, identify decision-makers, develop policy proposals, and build accountability for implementation. Work can yield concept papers, written proposals, and implementation plans; one- or two-day intensives can continue through policy labs and campaign accompaniment.
Public Square StudioNarrative, culture, and public expression
Public Square Studio develops the narrative and cultural practice that shapes public life. Participants examine whose stories influence what people believe is possible, then create public expression rooted in lived experience. The work challenges inherited assumptions, connects people across difference, and builds support for shared action.
Together, these spaces develop leaders and communities able to align systems, shape policy and public narrative, strengthen community safety and well-being, and build durable, place-based power.
05 / Published workA field book from the practice
A field book from the practice
POWER LAB
Civic Power, Democratic Participation, and Durable Community Safety
A field book for people strengthening democratic life in neighborhoods, institutions, congregations, organizations, and communities. Drawing on decades of organizing, faith leadership, and violence prevention, Juard M. Barnes traces how belonging, participation, leadership, and civic power can build the conditions for lasting safety.
Find the book on AmazonPaperback and Kindle availability. Opens Amazon in a new tab.
POWER LAB examines not only how people gain power, but what kind of civic culture is needed to exercise it responsibly. It connects organized people and institutions with shared responsibility, institutional alignment, and durable community safety.
06 / PartnershipWhere TRP can contribute
Strategic support, shaped around the work.
TRP partners with organizers, faith communities, credible messengers, public agencies, health systems, and universities. The form of the engagement follows the challenge on the ground.
Faith & Safety Infrastructure Lab
A practical learning experience for congregations, faith networks, coalitions, and civic partners. Participants map the people, relationships, programs, and property they already have, then work with partners to put those assets to use for lasting community safety.
CVI and ecosystem strategy
Readiness and ecosystem assessments, Safe Passage model development, street-team training, implementation planning, and sustained training and technical assistance.
Organizing and leadership
Campaign strategy, base-building, collaborative leadership, and support for teams doing the work.
Learning and public conversation
Power Lab, Amandla and Social Justice Revival gatherings, Arché, clergy and community learning, and keynote speaking.
07 / Field experienceBuilt through organizing and implementation
Experience that reaches from neighborhood teams to national field-building.
The frameworks grow out of work with organizers, residents, public institutions, and community safety practitioners—developed over decades and tested in real campaigns and local systems.
Organizing that moved public decisions
As Deputy Director, Juard helped lead statewide organizing that won the 2016 transit referendum and advanced a major justice-center restructuring effort, including a mental health diagnostic center.
Building organizing capacity across the Midwest
As Midwest Regional Director, he coached executive directors and staff and supported base-building and campaign work across Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, Missouri, and Illinois.
National learning and field-building
As a Senior Advisor to HAVI and Co-Project Lead for the White House CVI Collaborative, he helped lead national collaboration and Communities of Practice focused on community violence intervention.
Training, technical assistance, and practical models
His city-based work includes training street teams, developing Safe Passage models, conducting organizational and ecosystem assessments, and helping local partners move from planning into coordinated practice.
Gathering communities around justice and possibility
TRP has convened Social Justice Revivals in Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Kansas City, and the Metro East. This gathering work brings faith, culture, civic learning, and public participation together in a shared community space.
Connecting public gatherings with civic action
In Akron, TRP participated in a regional gathering and invited national recording artist Brent Jones to perform. In Milwaukee, Juard presented with Jones at a faith event of more than 300 people on civic engagement and voting. TRP has also made sustained investments in voter engagement in Milwaukee and the Metro East.
08 / GalleryPeople, place, and practice
The work, in the room.
A few glimpses of the relationships, learning, and community practice behind The Rehoboth Project.
09 / ArchéPublic learning across difference
One People, One Fight.
Arché makes a public square for people to study the stories shaping public life, learn across difference, and build common cause. Shared purpose does not require communities to set aside their histories or priorities.
Race and classBuild pathways to economic justice across communities.
Community violence intervention and public safetyConnect credible intervention with health coverage—including Medicaid—and practical support for victims of interpersonal violence.
09 / About TRPBecause God has made room for us
Power grows when people can shape what happens next.
The Rehoboth Project is a national organizing and consulting practice founded by Juard M. Barnes. For more than four decades, Juard’s work as a faith leader, organizer, and adviser has moved across neighborhood campaigns, violence prevention, public advocacy, and institutional change.
TRP works with people who are too often invited into a room after the important decisions have already been made. The work is to build the relationships, organization, and shared leadership that make their participation consequential.
God has made room for us.Genesis 26:22 · The meaning of Rehoboth