After three decades working in human and family services, Carolyne Hoyt has seen the devastating brutality of domestic violence. She teaches that violence is a cycle that doesn’t discriminate: young, old, rich, poor – it doesn’t matter.
As the executive director of the Family Counseling Agency, Carolyne helped many families recover and begin to thrive as survivors of domestic violence. She was familiar with the ecosystem of services that supported people after they survived violence – but what if we could stop it from ever happening in the first place? What if there was no violence to survive?
Carolyne left her job in 2005 to found NEXTStep Central Louisiana, a leading nonprofit organization whose curriculum, A Fight We Can Win, has become a model for teaching young people about dating and domestic violence. Since then, she’s built a nationally recognized program of classroom instruction, online learning and music videos to reach more than 18,000 Louisiana students.
Carolyne’s hope is that by helping students learn their worth, they will learn to recognize abuse and how to walk away. This is no small task: her research indicates that a third of teenagers know someone in their circle of friends who is being abused by an intimate partner.
Carolyne and her team hope to build a legacy of empowerment for young people, and a support system to end domestic violence before girls become women, before high school sweethearts become parents, and before cycles learned at home repeat.
As an advocate, she collaborated with lawmakers and testified before the Louisiana House Education Committee and helped draft a law making dating violence education mandatory for all high school students. At her own expense, she continues to crisscross the state presenting A Fight We Can Win to thousands each year. She trains teachers, parents, healthcare professionals, law enforcement, professional organizations and civic groups to raise awareness for intervention and education at an early age.