
International Conference
November 4th & 5th, 2010
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![]() Mary Asmus graduated from the University of Minnesota and is chief prosecutor for the Duluth, Minnesota City Attorney’s Office, where she has been instrumental in developing the office’s policies and procedures for the prosecution of domestic violence cases. She has conducted many police and prosecutor trainings regarding effective investigation and prosecution techniques and has spoken about the criminal justice system’s response to domestic violence at numerous conferences in the United States, Canada, and England. Her publications include “Prosecuting Domestic Abuse Cases in Duluth: Developing Effective Prosecution Strategies From Understanding the Dynamics of Abusive Relationships” (Hamline Law Review) and “Enhancing Networking Among Service Providers: Elements of Successful Coordination Strategies” (Coordinating Community Responses to Domestic Violence: Lessons from Duluth and Beyond). Additionally, she has authored a monograph addressing battered women’s use of violence, “At a Crossroads: Developing Duluth’s Prosecution Response to Battered Women Who Fight Back.” Ms. Asmus and her domestic violence prosecution efforts are profiled in “Law and Custom,” the first episode of A Woman’s Place, a PBS documentary series which chronicles the changes women are making throughout the world in law, politics, business, and private life. |
![]() Andrea Bible has been active in the movement to end domestic violence since 1993. She has worked specifically with battered women charged with crimes since 1998. As Special Projects Coordinator at the National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women, Andrea supports advocates throughout the country in working with currently and formerly incarcerated domestic violence victims. In 2009, Andrea returned to the National Clearinghouse full-time after six years in California, where she engaged in legal and policy work, public education efforts, media campaigns, community organizing, and individual and systems advocacy along with currently and formerly imprisoned survivors to secure the release of domestic violence victims serving life sentences from California state prisons. |
![]() Beth Beams is a licensed Social Worker who co-founded the women’s Program at the Center for Nonviolence in 1984. She has taught women’s studies and the History of Women’s Activism at IPFW and Provided International trainings for professionals in the field of interpersonal violence. Beth maintains a small private practice working with individuals and couples dealing with issues of grief and loss including, but not limited to healing from violence. |
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![]() Jeffrie Cape is the director of Charron Services where she provides individual counseling adults, children and families with a variety of issues. Additionally she designed and facilitates HEAL a BIP and WEAVE (for women arrested for using force) coordinated with community corrections. She also works part time for ADA, facilitating groups, supervising staff and writing curriculum.Jeffrie received a Masters in Social Science Administration from Case Western Reserve’s School of Applied Social Science in 1984. She started working with specialized foster care programs where she developed an expertise in survivors of child sexual assault and substance abuse. She has worked in several outpatient substance abuse programs. She spent several years working as an EAP where she developed an expertise in Critical Incident Stress Debriefings (CISD). She has provided CISD to a number of corporations. While working for Family Service Inc. she developed the SAVE |
![]() Laurie Cloutier-Lee is currently a Program Manager with MCADSV. As the Open Doors Project Coordinator, Laurie is working to assist domestic and sexual violence organizations to meet the needs of survivors who are currently or have been at some point incarcerated. Prior to her work with MCADSV, Ms. Cloutier-Lee was the Legal Advocacy and Emergency Response Team Coordinator at the YWCA Flint. Before then she worked seven years at the current Safehouse Center in Ann Arbor where she served in several capacities such as a Legal and Non-Residential Advocate, Legal Advocacy Program Coordinator and Helpline Program Coordinator.Ms. Cloutier-Lee has been an activist/advocate in the movement against domestic and sexual violence since 1978 and has worked as a shelter, crisis, legal, and response advocate in rural Alaska, Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota.Throughout her career, she has fought to bring awareness to the needs of domestic and sexual abuse survivors who are incarcerated. Ms. Cloutier-Lee is herself a survivor of both child sexual assault and domestic violence and has been incarcerated, thus she has firsthand knowledge and understanding of how her experiences with a lifetime of abuse contributed to her incarceration and how incarceration further exacerbated her trauma experiences. She has facilitated numerous support groups and has spoke within prison and jail systems throughout the Country, including the Wyoming Women’s Correctional Center in Lusk, Wyoming; Campbell County Detention Center, Gillette, Wyoming; Washtenaw County Jail, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Huron Valley Women’s Correction Facility, Ypsilanti, Michigan; and Cooper Street Correction Facility, Waterloo, Michigan.Ms. Cloutier-Lee is excited to share this time with you all, to share her knowledge and skill as an activist/advocate. She has seen this work evolve and change over the years and it is her hope that |
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![]() Policy & the Law. The first annual American Bar Association Domestic Violence Commission and Journal of Gender, Social Policy and the Law domestic violence dedicated section, 17(2), 229-268. Her book Equality With A Vengeance: Men’s Rights Groups, Battered Women, and Antifeminist Backlash is slated for publication in early 2011 with Northeastern University Press. |
![]() 5th through the 10th National Roundtable for Women in Prison conferences in Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; Washington, DC; South Oaks, California; and Ann Arbor, Michigan starting in 1989 and concluding in 2002. In January of 1994, Thea presented to The Bar Association of the City of New York. She has presented internationally at the 2nd Global Tribunal on Women’s Human Rights, which was part of the IV World Conference on Women (Beijing, China, 1995). She has been interviewed by magazine, newspaper, television and radio.In 2000, the Sunshine Lady Foundation awarded the Sunshine Lady Award to Thea. Also in 2000, Thea was awarded the YWCA of White Plains and Central Westchester Salute to Women and Racial Justice Award in the area of Human Services in 2000. During the summer sessions of 2009 and 2010, Thea was an Adjunct Instructor at College of New Rochelle whereshe taught the Dynamics of Domestic Violence. Thea continues to champion the work to end violence against women. |
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![]() Donna Gardner Jacoby, MA, MSW, is a licensed clinical social worker providing individual and family therapy at an outpatient community mental health agency in Rockledge, FL. Prior to working in Florida, she was employed by Artemis Center for Alternatives to Domestic Violence, Dayton, Ohio, as Clinical Director for twelve years. During that time she provided clinical supervision to victim advocates and child therapists. She initiated and implemented various projects including the Montgomery County Domestic Violence Hotline, the Women Who Resort to Violence group and the Dayton Safe Start project. She has trained police officers, prosecutors, physicians, victim advocates, and other professionals on issues concerning intimate partner violence. |
![]() Kathy Hagenian has worked in the field to end violence against women for over 25 years. Ms. Hagenian currently serves as the Executive Policy Director for the Michigan Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence (MCADSV), a position she has held since August 1996. She is widely respected for her leadership in legislative initiatives, participation in numerous multi-disciplinary task forces and workgroups, expertise as a trainer and work with survivors. Ms. Hagenian has co-authored several reports and manuals on domestic and sexual violence, including:Fighting for Justice for Battered Women: A Law and Advocacy Manual; The Response to Sexual Assault: Removing Barriers to Services and Justice; and Confidentiality Policy Considerations and Recommendations: A Resource Manual for Michigan Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Programs. |
![]() Jim has designed and conducted training’s, on the effective interviewing of domestic violence offenders and victims. He has endeavored to change the focus of the victim interview from that of “information gatherer” to that of “information provider”. Jim trains on the utilization of probation group reporting to gain better compliance, using the community to assist in the monitoring of batterers, thus enhancing the safety of those victimized by the violence. Jim has been faculty for several organizations including the multiple probation and parole associations, The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges Association, VERA institute of Justice, the Michigan Judicial Institute, Batterer Intervention Services Coalition of Michigan, Greenbook, The Battered Women’s Justice Project, American Probation & Parole Association, The National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies, the American Prosecutors Research Institutes National Institute on the Prosecution of Domestic Violence., The National Collage of District Court Attorneys Domestic Violence Conference, Praxis International, and The Presidents Family Justice Centers. Jim is on the national advisory board or acts as a consultancy team member for the Family Justice Center Alliance, The Battered Women’s Justice Program, and The Center for Court Innovation. Jim has been a Certified Addition Counselor II since 1987 and an Internationally Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor since 1990. He received his Master’s degree in social work from the University of Michigan in 1995. |
![]() by the Michigan Supreme Court to the Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure to review rules of criminal procedure used by all Michigan courts.She is a member of the National Domestic Violence Court Technical Assistance Consultancy Team for the Center for Court Innovation, and the National Center for State Court’s Advisory Committee for its Problem-Solving Justice Toolkit. A member of the Board of Governors of the AJA, Judge Hines is past Chair of the AJA Domestic Violence Committee, Chair of the AJA Access to Justice Committee, and a member of the AJA Executive Committee. She is active in her community and has received numerous awards including the “Patriot Award” from the Washtenaw County Bar Association, and the “2008 Distinguished Service Award” from the National Center for State Courts. |
![]() Erin H. House B.A. University of Michigan 1995,J.D University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 2003. Since 2004, Erin House has been employed as a Special Assistant Attorney General with the Criminal Division of the Michigan Attorney Generals Office. Erin prosecutes domestic violence and sexual assault cases in Northern Michigan. Erin began her work with domestic violence in 1992 when she began as a volunteer with the Domestic Violence Project/SAFE House in Washtenaw County, Michigan. Erin was employed full-time with SAFE House from 1994 until she began law school at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 2000. During her time with SAFE House, Erin supervised their 24-Hour On-Call Response Program which provided in-person response 24-hours a day, 7-days a week after law enforcement responded to a report of domestic assault. In addition, Erin supervised their Legal Advocacy Program that provided advocacy to survivors of domestic violence throughout the criminal and civil legal process. It was through this work that Erin first began to address and provide training on the issues of womens’ use of force.With the On-Call Response Team, Erin was commonly faced with situations where dual-arrests were made,where women were arrested, and where assaults occurred within same-gender relationships. In light of these situations, Erin developed screening protocols to identify and understand the reasons behind women’s use of force and to distinguish between female batterers, females acting in self-defense or in reaction to a history of victimization and isolated acts of force that were not a part of a larger context of power and control within intimate relationships.These assessment tools and strategies were important not just in assessing women’s use of force within heterosexual intimate relationship but also womens and mens use of force in same-sex relationships. Erin’s present work as a prosecutor of intimate partner violence is informed by her work with the Domestic Violence Project/SAFE House as well as her work with the Branch County Coalition Against Domestic Violence in Coldwater, Michigan and her work with the Orange County Domestic Violence Project in North Carolina. |
![]() Carol Jacobsen is an award winning social documentary artist whose activist practice draws on contemporary interviews, court files and historical records to challenge women’s criminalization and censorship. Her work has been sponsored by Amnesty International and other human and civil rights organizations, and has been exhibited worldwide, including at Lincoln Center, New York; Paris Feminist Film Festival, Human Rights Watch, Beijing, China, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Paul Robeson Foundation, Women in Film Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The American Association of University Women, and others. Her critical essays on feminism, art and politics have appeared in The New York Law Review, Hastings Women’s Law Journal, Signs Journal, Social Text, Art in America, Heresies and other journals. She is Professor of Art, Women’s Studies and Human Rights at The University of Michigan; and she is represented in New York by Denise Bibro Fine Art. She serves as Director of the Michigan Women’s Justice & Clemency Project, a grassroots advocacy and public |
![]() LeTonia Jones, MSW has been an activist and advocate working to end violence against women and girls for 12 years. She has worked both in domestic violence and rape crisis center programs. She is also a community organizer. She received her MSW from the University Programs Administrator for the Kentucky Domestic Violence Association whereshe is a member of the KDVA Training Team and provides training opportunities to an array of individuals and groups across Kentucky. She is also a Research Assistant for the University of Kentucky Center for Research on Violence Against Women. Ms. Jones serves as an expert witness in cases involving domestic violence, lobbies, and leads the KDVA Battered Women’s Clemency Project. She also builds collaborations using the arts as a tool to end violence against women and girls. |
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![]() for professionals committed to thoughtfully addressing the complexities of serving women who have used force. Lisa is the chairperson for the November 4 & 5, 2010 national Batterer’s Intervention Services Coalition of Michigan (BISC-MI) conference: When She Hits Him: Why Gender & Context Matter. She is also a published author, national presenter, and editorial review board member |
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![]() to redesign the US Marine Corps response to family violence. During that time she received a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and she designed the Safety and Accountability Audit Process used extensively by community teams seeking to enhance their institutional responses to domestic violence. Ellen has published extensively in this area, developed a number of professional training curricula, produced training films and lectured extensively both here and abroad. She is currently the Director of Praxis International which provides training and technical assistance on analyzing and changing institutional responses to battering. |
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![]() tried successfully in Northern Michigan. Janet continued to effectively defend other people who killed abusers and to consult in such cases. Since the early 1990s, she has been teaching courses on domestic and sexual violence (and other law related courses) at the undergraduate, graduate and law school levels in both Michigan and Minnesota. With attorney Jeanice Dagher-Margosian, she co-taught a course for Cooley Law School entitled, “Defending Battered Women.” She continues to serve as a committee member on the Domestic Violence Committee for the State Bar of Michigan. She is active in the Bemidji area and surrounding tribal communities working on domestic and sexual violence issues. |
![]() edited books in the fields of Gender and Cultural Studies for the politically progressive publishing house, Pluto Press. Debjani’s interest and passion for women’s rights and equality began as an undergraduate at New York University where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing from the Stern School of Business , with a minor in Gender Studies from the College of Arts and Science. She received her Master’s of Arts Degree in Cultural Studies from the University of London, Goldsmiths College and holds a Certificate in Understanding Women’s Human Rights from The London School of Economics. |
![]() and the State Bar of Michigan. She is the co-author of the domestic violence chapter of Michigan Family Law, published by the Institute of Continuing Legal Education. Rebecca received her J.D. from Wayne State University. |
![]() American battered women and sexual assault survivors.Professor Richie is the author of numerous articles concerning Black Feminism and Gender Violence, Race and Criminal Justice Policy, and The Social Dynamics around issues of sexuality, families and grassroots organizations in African American Communities. Her book Compelled to Crime:the Gender Entrapment of Black Battered Women, which is taught in many college courses and is cited in the popular press for its original arguments concerning race, gender and crime. Her upcoming book, Black Women, Male Violence and the Build-up of a Prison Nation chronicles the evolution of the contemporary anti-violence movement during the time of mass incarceration in the United States. Dr. Richie is qualitative researcher who is also working on an ethnographic project documenting the conditions of confinement in women’s prisons. Her work has been supported by grants from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Ford Foundation, and The National Institute for Justice and The National Institute of Corrections. Among others, she has been awarded the Audre Lorde Legacy Award from the Union Institute, The Advocacy Award from the US Department of Health and Human Services, and The Visionary Award from the Violence Intervention Project. Dr. Richie is a board member of The Chicago Foundation for Women, The Institute on Domestic Violence in the African Community, The Center for Fathers’ Families and Public Policy and a founding member of INCITE!: Women of Color Against Violence. |
![]() she worked for 13 years at End Violent Encounters (EVE, Inc., formerly known as the Council Against Domestic Assault), a domestic violence program in Lansing, MI. She obtained her Masters in Social Work at Michigan State University in 1987 and is a Licensed Social Worker (L.M.S.W.). Ms. Rosen has taught a class on child abuse at Lansing Community College, social work courses at Michigan State University (MSU), and a freshmen course on sexual assault and relationship violence at MSU. She is currently very active in the Capital Area Domestic and Sexual Violence Coordinating Council (CADSCCC) and the Campus Violence Free Community (VFC) Consortium, and sits on the Board of Directors for the Batterer’s Intervention Coalition of Michigan (BISC-MI). These groups focus on systems change work to improve community response and service delivery to maintain safety for battered women and to hold assailants accountable.In addition Ms. Rosen was a Board Member for the Council Against Domestic Assault/ EVE Inc. and the Board of Directors of the Michigan Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence for six years, and currently is on the National Campus Steering Committee for the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault. Ms. Rosen chairs the VFC and is active in several subcommittees of the CADSVCC, including: Steering, Court Watch, Service Providers, and Capital Area Sexual Assault Response Effort (CASART). She is on the advisory board of the Lansing area Capital Area Response Effort (CARE) and the Personal Protection Order Office in Ingham County, Michigan. For several years Ms. Rosen has been utilized as an expert witness by prosecutors across the state, focusing on explaining domestic violence and sexual assault perpetrator tactics and victim response. Ms. Rosen takes an active role in providing trainings for Ingham county Court Watch, and statewide Expert Witness trainings. |
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![]() councils such as the Illinois Department of Human Services Domestic Violence Advisory Council.Ms. Welch came to the Office of Attorney General Madigan after nine years as the Executive Director of the Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women=s Network. As the Networks Director Ms. Welch coordinated public policy and system-wide advocacy efforts of more than 50 organizations plus individual members. She led the successful campaign for a new domestic violence court in Cook County, Illinois. Ms. Welch also developed the city of Chicago Domestic Violence Help Line in partnership with the Chicago Mayor’s Office on Domestic Violence. Prior to working at the Battered Womens Network she was a founding member of the Illinois Clemency Project for Battered Women. Ms. Welch holds a JD from the Chicago-Kent College of Law and received her undergraduate degree in psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. |
![]() in St. Paul. He is also the Director of the Safe Return Initiative that addresses the issues of prisoner reentry and domestic violence. He has worked in the field of domestic violence for more than thirty years. Dr. Williams has been a clinical practitioner; working in mental health, family therapy, substance abuse, child welfare, sexual assault, and domestic violence. He has worked in battered women’s shelters, developed curricula for batterers’ intervention programs and facilitated counseling groups in these programs. He has provided training across the United States and abroad on research and service-delivery surrounding partner abuse. He has been appointed to National Advisory Committees and task forces for the Center for Disease Control, US Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women, US Office on Women’s Health, and the US Department of Education. He has been a board member of various domestic violence and human service organization including shelter programs and National Domestic Violence Hotline.In 2000, he was appointed to the National Advisory Council on Domestic Violence by the US Secretary of Health and Human Services and US Attorney General. In 2009 participated in a Roundtable with the US Attorney General on issues related to fatherhood and participated in a Whitehouse Roundtable on Fatherhood and Domestic Violence. He has conducted training for the US Military Family Advocacy programs both in the United States and Abroad. Dr. Williams’ extensive research and publications in scholarly journals and books have centered on creating service delivery strategies to reduce violent behavior. Dr. Williams received a bachelor’s degree in social work from Michigan State University; a Masters in Social Work from Western Michigan University; a Masters in Public Health and a PH.D in Social Work both from the University of Pittsburgh. Click here for a selected list of Dr. Williams and recent honors |