Kit Gruelle is a survivor of domestic violence, who has worked as an advocate for battered women and their children for 33 years. As a renowned community educator, she has trained scores of advocates, criminal justice professionals (law enforcement, prosecutors, magistrates and judges), health care providers, clergy, legislators, educators and other allied professionals, and has guest lectured at colleges, universities, medical and law schools, schools of social work and public heath, and departments of sociology, women’s studies, and psychology on violence against women and children.
In 1996, while she was working at Family Violence and Rape Crisis Services in Pittsboro, NC, she created and managed the BRIDGES Program, one of the first Coordinated Community Response (CCR) programs in North Carolina. In 2012, she graduated from Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina with a BS in Sociology (concentration in gender-based violence). For the last twenty-one years, she has been a Subject Matter Expert and trainer for California POST (Peace Officers Standards and Training), helping develop training films and curricula for first responders, public safety dispatchers, and hostage/crisis negotiators. She has served as an expert witness for battered women in both state and federal court. She is the subject of Private Violence, an intimate and compelling documentary on domestic violence which premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and premiered on HBO in October of 2014. An interview with Gruelle and director Cynthia Hill can be seen at Democracynow.org. She co-authored, in 2017, with Dr. Elicka Peterson Sparks, a textbook on gender based violence, Intimate Partner Violence: Effective Procedure, Response and Policy.
Ms. Gruelle works as an advocate and consultant across the country.