Day One: Staff

Stephanie Nilva, Esq.
Executive Director

Stephanie is the Executive Director of Day One. Prior to establishing Day One in October 2005, Stephanie was the Director of Break the Cycle New York, which she launched as the local office of a national organization in 2003.

Stephanie has been working in the domestic violence field for more than twelve years. Throughout her legal career, Stephanie has practiced family and matrimonial law, specializing in domestic abuse. Immediately following law school, Stephanie was the recipient of a New York State IOLA Legal Services Fellowship designed to provide community education and direct representation in response to domestic violence in the Orthodox Jewish community.

Following her work in New York at both Legal Services for New York – Brooklyn Branch and New York Legal Assistance Group, Stephanie became the Acting Director and Managing Attorney at Community Law Center (now Law Center for Families) in Oakland, California. During her time in California, Stephanie also provided direct representation to clients in family law proceedings throughout Alameda County. Stephanie returned to New York and became the Executive Director of Legal Information for Families Today (LIFT), an organization devoted to helping individuals navigate the New York City child welfare and family court systems. Stephanie is currently a member of the Domestic Violence Committee of the New York City Bar.

Stephanie graduated from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law where she was involved in various public interest activities. She was a Senior Editor of the Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal and a member of Cardozo’s Bet Tzedek Legal Services Clinic. Upon her graduation, Stephanie received the Jonathan A. Weiss Award for Public Interest.

Born and raised in New York City, Stephanie graduated from Hamilton College with a Bachelor of Arts. She is admitted to the State Bars of New York, New Jersey and California.

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Rossana Bianco
Staff Attorney

As Staff Attorney of Day One, Rossana provides free legal services and educational outreach to young people between the ages of 12 and 22 with the aim of preventing and eradicating domestic violence. Additionally, Rossana also advocates for youth on critical city and state policy issues to expand the rights of and increase safety for teenage survivors of intimate partner violence.

Rossana graduated from New England School of Law where she was the recipient of a Charles Hamilton Houston Scholarship. She was also the recipient of her law school’s Public Interest Law Association grant and the Massachusetts Bar Foundation Legal Intern Fellowship Program. Rossana interned with Greater Boston Legal Services beginning in the summer after her first year, working in both the Family and Immigration Units. She also volunteered with the student-run legal clinic at the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans. During her final semester in law school, she studied abroad in The Netherlands while interning with the Association of Defense Counsel for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Prior to law school, Rossana got her start in the field of domestic violence while working as a researcher for Safe Horizon. In this position, Rossana interviewed victims of domestic violence in shelters as well as in Family Courts throughout New York City for a study on recidivism and lethality. It was this experience that ultimately led her to pursue a career in public interest law and in the field of domestic violence.

Rossana graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, where she double-majored in Philosophy and Psychology. After graduating college, Rossana spent a year teaching English in Santiago, Chile. She is fluent in Spanish.

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Jené Toussaint
Peer Leadership Coordinator

Jené Toussaint is the Peer Leadership Coordinator at Day One. Jené recruits and trains students on college campuses throughout New York City to become the next generation of leaders in the movement to end domestic violence. The goal of the Peer Leadership Program is to educate and empower youth and lower the tolerance among young people for all forms of violence and discrimination on their campuses and in their communities.

Jené graduated from Hunter College School of Social Work in 2007. She received an MSW concentrating in Community Organization and Planning and interned at Queens Community House and Fort Greene SNAP. Her time at Hunter was highlighted by her organizing work around popular education and anti-racist principles, which increased her commitment to social justice. As part of a student-designed tutorial class, she had the opportunity to create a curriculum based on the principles of anti-racism and popular education, which was used to start another tutorial class and hopefully will become part of the curriculum at Hunter College School of Social Work. She also helped to create an alliance student group at Hunter dedicated to bringing anti-racist principles to the Hunter Social Work community. In addition, Jené was awarded a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Community Development Fellowship, and created a leadership development curriculum with two other fellows, which she facilitated at two community organizations in New York City.

Prior to her graduate studies, Jené worked at the Partnership for the Homeless where she gained a great deal of knowledge about housing and homelessness in New York City. While there she coordinated a Homeless Voter Registration Campaign which registered over 2000 homeless New Yorkers and held train-the-trainer workshops with volunteers and organizations around voting rights.

Born in New York City, and raised in upstate New York, Jené graduated from Brandeis University with a double major in Politics and Philosophy. Jené is a woman of color of Caribbean descent,
and is committed to integrating effective community organizing efforts with an understanding of history, culture and the impact of racism on communities.

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Yalitza Garcia
Community Educator

Yalitza Garcia is the Community Educator for Day One. Yalitza conducts interactive trainings and workshops for youth throughout the five boroughs about dating abuse and domestic violence. Day One’s trainings help empower young people to explore healthy choices in their relationships.

Yalitza has been working with youth of diverse social and economic backgrounds for almost a decade. A native New Yorker, she has seen first-hand the issues that young people face, and is committed to doing meaningful work to help elevate today’s youth. A product of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, she found that young people in her community and neighboring communities are often in need of guidance and support. As a result, Yalitza committed her career to working with social services agencies, whose collective mission is to be a source of direct support for youth.

Prior to joining Day One, Yalitza worked with the Henry Street Settlement. As a Case Manager, she facilitated the creation and implementation of a work-readiness curriculum for local high school students, giving them the tools to better their chances in the professional world. Through this work Yalitza learned that the dynamics of a classroom are the most electric and engaging when the subject matter directly relates to daily life.

Yalitza has a Bachelor of Arts Degree from The City University of New York at Hunter College.

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Deborah Philips
Program Assistant

Deborah Philips is the Program Assistant for Day One, an organization that partners with New York City youth to end dating abuse and domestic violence through community education, supportive services, legal advocacy and leadership development.

Deborah joined the Day One staff as Program Assistant in December 2006, but her relationship with the organization began in fall 2004. Committed to its mission, Deborah volunteered with Day One (then Break the Cycle New York) in the office and represented the organization by tabling at community events.

As the Program Assistant at Day One, Deborah supports all three branches of Day One’s programming, and particularly the Legal Services Program. She helps coordinate with partner service organizations to provide clients with the comprehensive services they require. Deborah brings to Day One two and a half years of experience working in a law office as a paralegal and legal assistant.

In addition to her commitment to empowering youth, Deborah also has a passion for theatre, and likes to find opportunity for these two priorities to meet. One of her theatre involvements is with Magis Theatre Company, a company of professional theatre artists that partners with Notre Dame Girls Academy, giving the high school students an opportunity to make theatre under professionals’ mentorship.

Deborah earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Mount Holyoke College in 2004. While at Mount Holyoke she studied Philosophy and Theatre Arts, with a concentration on Women’s and Gender studies, and was a member of the Student Coalition for Action.

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