734.707.7550
International Conference
November 4th & 5th, 2010
 Susan B. Carbon is the Director of the United States Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women (OVW). Ms. Carbon was nominated to this position by President Barack Obama on October 1, 2009 and confirmed by the United States Senate on February 11, 2010. As Director, she serves as the liaison between the Department of Justice and federal, state, tribal, and international governments on crimes of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking. In this role, she is responsible for developing the Department’s legal and policy positions regarding the implementation of the Violence Against Women Act and oversees an annual budget of nearly $400 million.Ms. Carbon was first appointed to the bench in 1991, and served as Supervisory Judge of the New Hampshire Judicial Branch Family Division from 1996 until 2010. She was a member of the Governor’s Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence and chaired New Hampshire’s Domestic Violence Fatality Review Committee. She was Chair of the Grafton County, NH Greenbook Project, a collaboration of the U.S. Department of Justice and Health and Human Services to improve practice where child protection cases intersect with domestic violence. She was also Lead Model Court Judge in New Hampshire for the nation?wide initiative of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges to improve court practice surrounding child protection cases, focusing on foster care and adoption. Ms. Carbon also served as President of NCJFCJ from 2007 to 2008, and was President of the New Hampshire State Bar Association in 1993?94. Ms. Carbon has also worked with the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts on two of their major initiatives conducted at the Wingspread Conference Center, the Family Law Reform Education Project (FLER Project), and Domestic Violence and Family Courts, dealing with differentiation of domestic violence in cases of child custody.Ms. Carbon has trained judges and other professionals across the country and internationally on topics related to family violence, firearms, child custody, and child protection. She has published extensively on these and other topics, including on judicial selection and retention and judicial administration. Ms. Carbon served as faculty for the National Judicial Institute on Domestic Violence—a partnership of OVW, the Family Violence Prevention Fund, and NCJFCJ. In September 2006, she chaired “Firearms and Domestic Violence: A National Summit for Community Safety,” an initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Justice. She also chaired the project which produced the multidisciplinary Effective Issuance and Enforcement of Orders of Protection in Domestic Violence Cases (The Burgundy Book), a document used throughout the U.S. and its territories to guide professionals in their work around civil protection orders.Ms. Carbon is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Madison and the DePaul University College of Law. Prior to becoming a judge, she was in private practice for a decade, and previously worked at the American Judicature Society in Chicago on a number of national court reform initiatives. |
 MARY ASMUS
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
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 MURPHY BEAMS
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. |
 CONNIE BURK Connie Burk co-founded the first regional LBTG survivor services in Kansas over fifteen years ago. Since 1997, she has directed The Northwest Network of Bisexual, Trans, Lesbian and Gay Survivors of Abuse in Seattle,WA. She is the co-author of the groundbreaking work, Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others, and an executive producer of the documentary film, A Lot Like You. She is currently authoring a Domestic Violence Assessment Manual.Connie trains internationally on community engagement, domestic abuse and prevention strategies, and taking the “crisis” out of crisis response organizations. Her work in the LGBT community has developed her expertise in assessment, survivors’ use of violence, working with survivors’ friends and families, working with men, community engagement strategies and related issues. She has focused particular attention on strengthening alliances among marginalized communities while centering liberation values in her work. |
 JEFFRIE K. CAPE
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
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 |
 MELISSA DICHTERMelissa Dichter is a post-doctoral fellow in health services research at the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP) at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center. Melissa’s research focuses on women’s experiences with intimate partner violence and intersections with the criminal legal, healthcare, and social service systems. Melissa earned her PhD in Social Welfare and Masters in Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice, and her BA in Child Development from Tufts University. |
 TERESE M. DICKTerese Dick is an attorney with the Wisconsin State Public Defender in Milwaukee, the largest urban public defender office in the state, where she represents indigent clients charged with felony and misdemeanor level offenses. Ms. Dick was a member of the Milwaukee Trial Office Management Team from 1993-2003 supervising a team of 10-12 staff attorneys. She was instrumental in developing a felony level Drug Practice Group; involved in a system wise Restorative Justice Program, and other diversion/resolution alternatives to traditional court processes. Since 1998 Ms. Dick has served as the defense bar representative to the three specialized Domestic Violence Courts representing the staff and private bar attorneys and acts as a liaison to the Judiciary presiding in the Domestic Violence Courts. In 1998, when Milwaukee was chosen as one of the three sites for the Judicial Oversight Demonstration Initiative (“JODI), Ms. Dick was selected to serve as a member of the Advisory Board and served on many committees including: court processes; BIP programs; Victim’s rights; Victim/Witness Services in the court system; information sharing among the Civil, Criminal, Family and Children’s Courts; and worked in collaboration with the District Attorney’s office and the Department of Corrections including Probation and Parole.In 2009 Ms. Dick was invited to participate in the “Judicial Roundtable Discussion: Batterer Accountability and Opportunity for Change” sponsored by the National Judicial Institute on Domestic Violence (NJIDV) in partnership with the NCFJCJ, Family Violence Prevention Fund and the Department of Justice Office on Violence against Women. Since 2009 Ms. Dick has been a faculty member at the “Enhancing Judicial Skills in Domestic Violence Cases Workshop” teaching judicial officers from across the United States in the area of domestic violence, a program sponsored by the NCFJCJ and FVPF. Additionally, Ms. Dick was a faculty member at the 2009 BISC-MI Annual Conference. To increase awareness and knowledge of domestic violence issues and to enhance trial practice Ms. Dick created and coordinates a Domestic Violence Trial Practice Group for staff attorneys who have made a commitment to practicing in the Domestic Violence Courts. |
| MOLLY DRAGIEWICZDr. Molly Dragiewicz is Assistant Professor of Criminology, Justice and Policy Studies at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Canada. Dr. Dragiewicz won the New Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology Division on Women and Crime in 2009. Recent publications include: Gender bias in the courts: Implications for battered mothers and their children (2010), in M. Hannah and B. Goldstein (Eds.) Domestic violence, abuse, and child custody: Legal strategies and policy issues. Kingston, NJ: Civic Research Institute; Why sex and gender matter in domestic violence research and advocacy (2009), in E. Stark and E. Buzawa (Eds.) Violence against women in families and relationships: Making and breaking connections (pp.201-215), Santa Barbara: Praeger, and The gendered nature of domestic violence: Statistical data for lawyers considering equal protection analysis (2009) with Yvette Lindgren, American University Journal of Gender, Social 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. |
 THEA DUBOW Thea DuBow grew up in the Bronx, New York where she graduated from Roosevelt High School. She received a BA in Elementary Education from Queens College and an MS in Early Childhood education from Lehman College. She taught in public elementary schools in the Bronx and Yonkers. Thea worked for My Sisters’ Place, an agency providing services to battered women and their children, from July of 1987 to April of 2001. She was promoted up the ranks from a Counselor, working in the shelter, to Assistant Executive Director. Currently, she is working for the Westchester County Office for Women as a Program Administrator of Domestic Violence Systems. In this position, she over sites county contracts, does community and professional educational trainings on issues related to domestic violence. Thea works collaboratively with systems to improve their response to domestic violence victim/survivors and to hold abusive partners responsible for their illegal acts.Thea has presented individually and on many panels in diverse settings since 1988. Some highlighted events from her extensive speaking career are: the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence conferences in Seattle, Washington; Amherst, Massachusetts; St. Paul, Minnesota; Charleston, South Carolina; Denver, Colorado; Portland, Oregon and New York, New York;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. |
 BRANT FUNKHOUSER, JD Brant Funkhouser is Director of Model Cities Legal Services, where he has represented low-income clients, primarily as a criminal defense attorney, for more than 30 years. He is committed to advancing progressive and collaborative approaches that serve to increase equity within the legal system for all participants. Brant is a primary team member of Washtenaw County’s Street Outreach Court, designed to serve people who are homeless or at risk, and Sobriety Court, which has entailed national and state training sessions. Both of these special programs are designed to support foundational changes that will prevent recidivism, help individuals and families, and promote public safety.In 2001 he was a participant in VERA sessions where victim advocates and defense attorneys from Boston, Milwaukee and Ann Arbor exchanged ideas and learned together about leading practices in domestic violence cases. At the 2009 BISC-MI Annual Conference, he was a panel member of the Washtenaw County Judicial Oversight Demonstration Team and also a presenter of Low Cost and No Cost Coordinated Community Response Innovations. Mr. Funkhouser is currently Vice-Chair of the City of Ann Arbor/Washtenaw County Community Corrections Advisory Board, where he has been a board member for over fifteen years. He received his B.A. from the University of Michigan and J.D from Wayne State University. Brant has practiced in family courts, as a divorce attorney or attorney for children or parents in juvenile court. He has represented more defendants in domestic violence cases in Ann Arbor’s Fifteenth District Court than any other attorney. |
 DAVID J. H. GARVIN, MSW, LMSW, David is the Senior Director of Catholic Social Services of Washtenaw County in Ann Arbor, Michigan where he founded, supervises and directs the Alternatives to Domestic Aggression Program (ADA), the Behavioral Health Services and Substance Abuse Services, Adoption and Pregnancy Services, and the Supervised Visitation and Exchange Program. David has been directly involved in the anti-domestic violence movement since 1986 when he founded the ADA Program.Mr. Garvin is a co-founder and current Chair of the Batterer Intervention Services Coalition of Michigan (BISC-MI). Mr. Garvin was selected to serve as the co-chair of the Michigan Governor’s Taskforce on creating standards for batterer intervention programs. Mr. Garvin has conducted trainings, consultations, conferences, workshops, in-services around the country and has been featured on local, state and national television, in magazines, professional journals and newspapers. Mr. Garvin was named the 2009 National Association of Social Workers-Michigan (NASW-MI) Social Worker of the Year. He earned the prestigious honor for his work in the areas of domestic violence, mental health and adoption. |
| DONNA GARDNER JACOBY
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
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. |
 JAMES E. HENDERSON JR.Jim Henderson is a technical assistance provider for the US Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women through the Battered Women’s Justice Project.From 1991-2008 Jim was a probation officer responsible for overseeing the policies and practices of Intensive Probation for Domestic Violence offenders in Ann Arbor MI. He was assigned to the Washtenaw County Domestic Violence Unit as part of the Judicial Oversight Demonstration Initiative from 1999 to 2005 and works from a system perspective to enhance victim’s safety and defendant accountability. He has provided batterer intervention within the Detroit metropolitan area since 1995. Before joining the criminal justice system in 1993, he worked as the clinical director of Straight, Inc., a family oriented substance abuse program for drug using young people and their families.In 1998, Jim was appointed by the Mayor of Ann Arbor to serve on the Ann Arbor Domestic Violence Coordinating Board. He has served two terms as a Regional Representative for the Batterer Intervention Services Coalition of Michigan and has been active with them since 1997. He has also been an active member of the Arab American Domestic Violence Coalition from 2001-2006. In 2002 he received a certificate of appreciation for outstanding service on behalf of crime victims from the Washtenaw County Prosecutors office.
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. |
 ELIZABETH POLLARD HINES Elizabeth Pollard Hines was elected Judge of the 15th District Court in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1992. She served as Chief Judge from 1997 to 2001, and as the former Presiding Judge of the District Court Division of the Washtenaw County Trial Court when all courts in the county were unified. She presides over criminal cases including a specialized domestic violence docket, and she helped create and launch “Street Outreach Court”, a community project of the Washtenaw County criminal justice system and advocates for the homeless. Judge Hines received her BA, with honor, from the University of Michigan in 1974, and her JD from the University of Michigan Law School in 1977. In 1987, she was appointed as the first Chair of Ann Arbor’s Domestic Violence Coordinating Board.She represented her colleagues on the Executive Committee managing a Judicial Oversight Demonstration Initiative (“JODI”) sponsored by the US Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women from 1999 to 2004, one of three sites in the country selected to see what works best in cases of domestic violence. She helps train new judges on DV through the Michigan Judicial Institute. She was appointed to serve on the Governor’s Task Force on Children’s Justice and the Governor’s Task Force on Batterer Intervention Standards. She was appointedby 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 HOUSEErin 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
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
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. |
 POCO KERNSMITHPoco Kernsmith, M.S.W., Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at Wayne State University. Dr. Kernsmith completed her Masters in Social Work in interpersonal practice and community organizing at the University of Michigan and her PhD in Social Welfare at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research interests include violence that occurs in relationships and families, including child sexual abuse, sexual violence, stalking and intimate partner violence. In particular, Dr. Kernsmith is interested in gender issues in perpetration of violence and policy issues around violence prevention and intervention with offenders. Prior to her academic career, Dr. Kernsmith has worked in several domestic violence and sexual assault service agencies in Michigan and California, primarily providing services to children exposed to violence and female victims of intimate partner violence and sexual assault. |
 JEFFREY A. KREMERSI have been a judge in Milwaukee County since December 1992. I am currently the Chief Judge for Milwaukee County Previously I was the presiding judge in the Civil, Felony, and Misdemeanor divisions.I earned my J.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1975 and my B.A. from the University of Colorado. I spent 11 years in private practice handling a variety of civil litigation matters and before that was an assistant D.A. for Milwaukee County assigned to, and director of the Sensitive Crimes Unit.I am a frequent instructor to the Wisconsin Judiciary on a variety of topics including DV, Sexual Assault, Immigration issues, and Sexual Predators. I am a faculty member as well as past associate dean of the Wisconsin Judicial College. I am also a member of the faculty for the National Judicial Institute on Domestic Violence presented by the NCJFCJ and The Family Violence Prevention Fund. Other professional activities include membership on several statewide committees charged with making recommendations regarding judicial education in the areas of DV, Sexual Assault and Stalking, our Criminal Jury Instruction Committee, and jury issues. |
 SHERYL KUBIAK Sheryl Pimlott Kubiak, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the College of Social Science at Michigan State University. Dr. Kubiak is a graduate of the MSW and psychology programs at the University of Michigan and NIMH pre-doctoral fellow in gender and mental health. Her research interests are at the intersections of criminal justice, mental health and substance abuse – encompassing both individual as well as systems issues – particularly for women. Dr. Kubiak has examined the implications of cumulative stress, PTSD and depression among women convicted of drug offenses; assessed the implications of welfare reform on women with drug convictions; analyzed the effects of PTSD on incarcerated men and women; and evaluated PTSD and depression in women victimized during incarceration. She has been a consultant for federal, state and local entities interested in improving service delivery for those with substance abuse and/or mental health disorders – particularly those within the criminal justice system. Recent projects include: 1) building capacity for domestic violence programs to serve women involved in the criminal justice system, 2) assessing effect of funding source on service delivery; 3) measuring how individuals with a serious mental illness traverse between the county jail and mental health services; 4) developing screening instruments and assessing mental health for women in the Wayne County Jail. Previous to her academic career, Dr. Kubiak lead a statewide collaboration that was successful in obtaining federal demonstration funding to provide alternatives to pregnant women in the criminal justice system. After obtaining the grant she spent 6 years as an administrator of a community based agency that exclusively served women involved in the criminal justice system. |
 LISA YOUNG LARANCE, BA, MSW, LCSW, LMSW,Lisa holds a bachelor of arts degree from Smith College and a master’s of social work degree from Washington University’s George Warren Brown School of Social Work. Her research, programmatic, and clinical expertise are grounded in an eclectic combination of international and domestic endeavors. Lisa’s diverse professional experiences include teaching English in Japan, meeting the needs of low-literacy pregnant teenagers in Hawaii, and, as a Fulbright Scholar, investigating the social impact nongovernmental bank membership has on the lives of impoverished rural Bangladeshi women.Each experience has inspired – and continues to inform – Lisa’s work with men who batter, female survivors of domestic violence, and women who have used force in their intimate relationships. Before joining to Catholic Social Services of Washtenaw County (CSS-W), Lisa co-facilitated support groups for female survivors of domestic violence, and men who batter, at the Jersey Battered Women’s Services (JBWS), Inc. in Morris County, NJ. At JBWS, Lisa also co-created, implemented, and managed JBWS’ Vista Program that provides an extended view of serving women who have used force. In addition, Lisa and JBWS colleagues wrote and published the Vista curriculum that addresses the diverse needs of this population (www.jbws.org).Since joining to CSSW in 2007, Lisa created, implemented and coordinates the Reflectively Embracing Nonviolence through Education for Women (RENEW) Program – both agency and jail based – that contextually addresses the advocacy, support, and intervention needs of women who have used force (www.csswashtenaw.org/renew).In 2007, Lisa and David J.H. Garvin cofounded the international W-Catch22 list serve that provides resources and information sharing opportunities
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 |
| CHARO LEDON Charo Ledon joined SafeHouse first as interpreter in July of 2008, then as Spanish Speaking Out reach Advocate in October 2008, working primarily with members of the Latino community although not exclusively. Also leading the Spanish Speaking support group “ Un paso a la libertad” every Wednesday evening. She is also an interpreter and translator with University Interpreters.Having lived in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area since 1974, she has seen the community grow and diversify.Having owned and operated several businesses in the area, she has had the opportunity to serve the community in a variety of venues for two decades. She is particularly well acquainted with the challenges, struggles and strengths of Latinos. |
| S. KERENE MOORES.Kerene Moore is a staff attorney for Legal Services of South Central Michigan’s Washtenaw County Office and close affiliate of The Family Law Project. With funding made available under the Violence Against Women’s Act, she represents survivors of domestic violence on civil legal matters, including family law, housing, consumer, and public benefits issues. She also assists eligible immigrants who are survivors of domestic violence with obtaining legal citizenship status. |
 ELLEN PENCEEllen Pence has been an activist in the battered women’s movement since 1975. She worked for four years helping to develop a network of shelters in Minnesota. In 1980 she and a small group of activists organized the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project in Duluth Minnesota. The City of Duluth was the first to coordinate the intervention of all its’ criminal justice agencies under policies and protocols centralizing the protection of battered women. She co-wrote with her colleague Michael Paymar; Tactics of Control an Educational Curriculum for Men who Batter. Today it is the most widely used batterers rehabilitation model in the country. She helped organize the Duluth Visitation Center in 1988. From 1990-95 she worked with a team of national domestic violence expertsto 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. |
 CINDENE PEZZELLCindene Pezzell is the Legal Coordinator at the National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women, a legal resource and advocacy center for battered women charged with crimes. Before joining the National Clearinghouse, Cindene was an assistant public defender at the Defender Association of Philadelphia. During her time as a public defender, she represented indigent people facing felony and misdemeanor charges. Cindene worked in several units of the Defender Association, and focused primarily on trial work. During her final year as a public defender, Cindene practiced exclusively in family court, providing criminal defense to people accused of crimes involving the violation of a civil protection order. In addition to coordinating the Legal Team at the National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women, Cindene provides direct technical assistance to defense teams, researches and develops legal materials, and conducts training programs. |
 HILLARY POTTER Hillary Potter is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She holds a B.A. and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Colorado at Boulder and an M.A. in criminal justice from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Dr. Potter’s research has focused on the intersections of race, gender, and class as they relate to crime and violence, and she is currently researching race variations in intimate partner homicides; intimate partner abuse among interracial couples; and community intervention in intimate partner abuse. Dr. Potter is the author of Battle Cries: Black Women and Intimate Partner Abuse (New York University Press, 2008) and the editor of Racing the Storm: Racial Implications and Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina (Lexington Books, 2007). |
 JANET PRATERJanet E. Prater is Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Bemidji State University in Bemidji, Minnesota. She earned a law degree from Wayne State University Law School in 1974, and a master’s degree in counselor education from Wayne State University in 2005. Early in her career, Janet worked with the Wayne County Defender System as a Juvenile and Felony Defender. While at the Felony Defender Office, she took a leave of absence to serve as co counsel with attorney Dean Robb on the Jeanette Smith case. This was an early women’s self defense casetried 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. |
 DEBJANI ROY Debjani Roy joined Manavi in February 2009 and is the Program Manager. Prior to this, she worked in women’s rights and equality in London for several women’s organizations including The National Alliance of Women’s Organizations, Widow’s Rights International, Ashiana Network and Women and Girls Network. Her diverse experience includes program management, direct service provision, communications, research, and policy advocacy. She has worked on issues such as forced marriage, ‘honor’ based violence, sexual trafficking, widow’s rights and domestic violence. She has alsoedited 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. |
 REBECCA SHIEMKE Rebecca Shiemke is the family law attorney at the Michigan Poverty Law Program, a cooperative project of Legal Services of South Central Michigan and the University of Michigan Law School. MPLP is a state-wide program that provides legal support, consultation and training to legal services attorneys and poverty law. Rebecca is also the managing attorney of the Family Law Project, a field office of LSSCM, which trains law students and provides civil legal assistance to domestic violence victims. Rebecca has been with LSSCM since 1997. Prior to that, Rebecca was the coordinator of legal services at the Women’s Justice Center in Detroit, Michigan.Rebecca is the current co-chair of the Domestic Violence Committee of State Bar of Michigan and has been a member of the committee since it began. She is also a council member of the State Bar Family Law Section and co-chairs its domestic violence committee. She has been a trainer for the Michigan Domestic Violence Prevention and Treatment Board, the Michigan Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, the Institute for Continuing Legal Education, the Michigan Judicial Instituteand 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. |
| BETH RICHIE The emphasis of Beth Richie’s scholarly and activist work has been on the ways that race/ethnicity and social position affect women’s experience of violence, focusing on the experiences of African 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. |
 HOLLY ROSEN Holly Rosen is currently the Director of MSU Safe Place, a domestic violence shelter on the campus of Michigan State University. She has been the director of that program since 1994. Prior to thatshe 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. |
 DANIEL G. SAUNDERS, Ph.D., M.S.S.W. Daniel G. Saunders is a Professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work and Co-Director of the university’s Interdisciplinary Research Program on Violence Across the Lifespan. His research, teaching, and service focus on the problems of dating and domestic violence. Dr. Saunders established one of the first intervention programs for men who batter and has been a counselor, group leader, trainer, advocate, and researcher in the domestic violence field for many years. He has published over 70 articles and book chapters, primarily on offender program effectiveness, the traumatic effects of victimization, and the response of professionals to survivors of domestic violence. These professionals include police officers, welfare workers, nurses, physicians and psychologists. Dr. Saunders has been an expert witness in court cases involving custody, supervised visitation, and domestic homicide. He recently directed the National Evaluation of the Safe Havens Supervised Visitation and Safe Exchange Demonstration Initiative and a National Institute of Justice study on the beliefs and practices of child custody evaluators. |
| DETECTIVE TIFFANY SMALL |
| JENNIFER WELCHJennifer Welch is the Policy Director for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. In this role she leads a team to develop and implement policy initiatives for the Attorney General covering topics including violence against women, internet safety, campus safety and children’s products safety. She represents the Attorney General on numerous Boards and Committees, for example acting as Chair Pro Temp of the Illinois Violence Prevention Authority.Previously, Ms. Welch focused on violence against women as the Attorney General’s Women’s Policy Advisor. In that role she led statewide efforts to improve laws, services and systems for abused women and their children. For example, she created and introduced the order of protection short form notification to law enforcement agencies throughout the state. Ms. Welch continues to monitor policies and legislation impacting women and children and participates on numerous boards and advisory 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. |
 OLIVER J. WILLIAMS, PH.D. Executive Director of the Institute on Domestic Violence in the African American Community St. Paul, MNOliver J. Williams, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Institute on Domestic Violence in the African American Community, and a Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Minnesota,
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 |