Update on Joe Graff
It has been quite some time since we contributed to our digital presence for many reasons, but this instance is one in which our action is necessary.
We want to add some color and context to what has been, to this point, understood as Joe resigning from his role at CCI- you can read his original resignation letter here. We allowed Joe to publicly state resignation as a thank you for his contributions to CCI, but he was removed from our team. He was removed due to neglecting a reported incident that would have required escalation within our framework along with numerous other incidents of not performing his required duties as report manager and Pillar manager.
We let him resign due to a series of considerations, including but not limited to his contributions within the formation of CCI and the long term friendship he held with all of the active and founding members. We hoped that stating his removal as a resignation would insulate his educational endeavors as a mental health care provider. We allowed him to state his removal as a resignation on his explicit request to do so, to preserve his dignity in the context of this work and his community. With the information we had at the time, that seemed like the best call, and as more information has come to our attention we realize the importance of transparency, and that is why we are writing this now. Joe repeatedly failed to meet expectations in his time at CCI, which compromised our mission, operations, values, and the safety of survivors. We immediately disallowed Joe to be responsible for aspects of our operations as we discovered his inability to manage them appropriately. Upon discovering his gross negligence of a report intaken in 2021, we promptly removed him from our board.
Below is a non-exhaustive list of the issues that were addressed or arose because of Joe’s position at CCI.
- Inserting himself in public callouts, while being associated with which conveyed CCI, which conveyed CCI involvement inaccurately
- Neglecting his role as a pillar manager while on site by not appearing to debriefs as well as being unavailable to volunteers under his leadership
- Neglecting his duties as report intake manager
- Teaching course work which he was not qualified or given permission to teach
- Consistent inability to meet deadlines set for the organization and his role within it
- Failing to document his communications with survivors
- Incomplete or unexecuted follow-ups with survivors following reports intake
- Failing to deliver resources for survivor support and restorative justice
- 1 on 1 requests for discussions with survivors and implicated parties following report intake without appropriate follow up and recording.
Even now, we continue to discover reports that fell through the cracks due to Joe’s engagement. It pains us to know that in the face of traumatic and pivotal moments in reporters’ lives, they sought our support and with all good intentions and efforts, we failed them. Because we failed to recognize the holes in our protocol, staff infrastructure, and more thoroughly vet volunteers within this safer space initiative, people got hurt and were enabled which falls squarely on our shoulders. We ask that you make any effort to learn from this if you are an organizer working to create safer spaces and to share these lessons we have learned while working towards reducing harm.
-Sincerely the CCI Team
