Our Team & Research Associates
Executive Team
Operations
Projects
Sarah Webb
Students
The Centre is happy to supervise students in the Counselling Psychology graduate program. The Centre has seen 40 students come through as graduate candidates.
Partners
CREVAWC partners with other organizations to build community and academic partnerships to carry out research and public education to eliminate violence against women and children, and family violence.
View List of Partners
The Alliance
CREVAWC is a member of the Alliance of Canadian Research Centres on Violence.
Mission Statement
The Alliance of Canadian Research Centres on gender-based violence exists to build community and academic partnerships to carry out research and public education to eliminate violence against women and children, and family violence. Alliance of Canadian Research Centres on Violence's website.
Members of the Alliance
The Centre for Research & Education on Violence against Women and Children
The University of Western Ontario
Room 1118, Faculty of Education Building
1137 Western Road
London, ON N6G 1G7
The Freda Centre for Research on Violence against Women and Children
SFU Harbour Centre
515 West Hastings
Vancouver, BC V6B 5K3
RESOLVE: Research and Education for Solutions to Violence and Abuse - Alberta
EdT 1410
University of Calgary
2500 University Drive NW
Calgary, AB T2N 1N4
RESOLVE: Research and Education for Solutions to Violence and Abuse - Manitoba
108 Isbister Building
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2
RESOLVE: Research and Education for Solutions to Violence and Abuse - Saskatchewan
c/o Luther College, LC 210
University of Regina
Regina, SK S4S OA2
Muriel McQueen Fergusson Centre for Family Violence Research
P.O Box 4400
Fredericton, NB E3B 5A3
Recherches Appliquées et Interdisciplinaires sur les Violences intimes, familiales et structurelles
Universite de Montreal,
Ecole de service social CP6128, SUCC Centre Ville
Montreal , QC H3C 3J7
Other Partners
Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence
6th Floor, Mackinnon Building, University of Guelph
50 Stone Road East, Guelph Ontario N1G 2W1
519-824-4120 X53523
Rural Women Making Change - The RWMC Network
Centre for Families, Work and Well-being
17 University Avenue East, University of Guelph
Guelph Ontario N1G 2W1
519-824-4120 X 58027
Local
Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada
Department of Women’s Studies & Feminist Research , Western University
Deshkan Ziibi Native Women’s Association
Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Western Ontario
Ivey Business School, University of Western Ontario
London District Catholic School Board
Middlesex County Coordinating Committee to End Woman Abuse
Muslim Resource Centre for Social Support and Integration
Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University
Thames Valley District School Board
Provincial
Action Ontarienne contre la violence faite aux femmes
Assaulted Women and Children’s Counsellor Advocate Program, George Brown College
Domestic Violence Death Review Committee, Ontario
International Accident Prevention Association
Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres
Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres
Southwest Region Coordinating Committee
Coalition on Media Violence (hosted by the Ontario Public School Boards Association)
National
Canadian Labour Congress, Women’s Committee
Canadian Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse
International
Academic Research Associates
View Academic Research Associates
Marcie Campbell
Marcie Campbell received her B.A in Psychology and a Masters in Counselling Psychology program from Western University. Marcie’s past role was the Research Associate at the Centre for Research & Education on Violence against Women & Children (CREVAWC), Marcie conducts research on issues related to woman abuse and children exposed to domestic violence, with specific attention to the role of perpetrators and domestic homicide prevention. Her clinical interests focus on engaging abusive men in treatment programs. Since 2006, Marcie has been the research assistant for the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee (DVDRC) of Ontario until 2013 when she was appointed full committee member. She also served as a research consultant to the evaluation of the Defending Childhood initiative in the U.S. Marcie has been invited to present research and new initiatives around identifying and managing high risk cases and domestic homicide prevention for the Law Society of Upper Canada, and the National Domestic Violence Fatality Review Initiative in the U.S. Marcie co-authored the book, Growing up with domestic violence (Hogrefe Publishing), dealing with children exposed to domestic violence.
Krys Maki
In addition to their work at WSC, they completed a SSHRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies at the University of Ottawa in January 2020. Krys is the recipient of numerous awards including the Canadian Sociological Association’s Outstanding PhD Graduating Student Recognition Award and the SSHRC Vanier Canadian Graduate Scholarship.
Adriana Berlingieri
Dr. Adriana Berlingieri, PhD, is an organizational consultant, educator, and researcher. Her extensive professional experience has focused on areas of workplace learning and development within organizations in an array of sectors internationally. As a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto, she is currently collaborating with the Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children on projects related to domestic violence, and other forms of violence, at work. Dr. Berlingieri’s primary scholarly and professional interests are centered on bullying and other forms of violence at work (defined broadly to include multiple, interrelated forms). A specific focus is organizational practices to prevent and respond to workplace violence and harassment. She explores these interests with the main principle that workplace contexts need to be studied as interrelated with broader social contexts.
Dr. Berlingieri was the recipient of the 2015 Award for Outstanding Thesis in Organizational Leadership for her dissertation, an organizational ethnography within a major healthcare organization in Toronto where she researched how its members’ conceptualizations of violence shapes organizational anti-violence practices, including policies and education and training programs. She has presented her research in national and international conferences and has published in peer-reviewed journals.
Dr. Berlingieri teaches at the School of Administrative Studies, York University, the Faculty of Education, Queen’s University, and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto.
Audra Bowlus
Andrea Titterness
Dr. Andrea Titterness graduated magna cum laude with a BA in Psychology from Western Washington University. While at Western, Andrea was involved with a volunteer organization that educated the public on issues relating to intimate partner violence and sexual assault. Andrea then moved to Vancouver, BC and earned a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of British Columbia. Her research focused on the effects of prenatal events, such as exposure to ethanol or stress in utero, on brain function in early adolescent rodents. While working on her doctoral dissertation, Andrea was the secretary on the Board of Directors at the Victoria Sexual Assault Centre in Victoria, BC. Dr. Titterness is currently collaborating with researchers at the Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children to combine her research expertise with her passion to end violence against women and children.
Claire V. Crooks
Dr. Crooks Ph.D., C.Psych. is the Director of the Centre for School Mental Health and an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Western University. Her main research interests include the development and evaluation of mental health promotion and violence prevention programming, with a particular emphasis on extending evidence-based practice to meet the unique needs of marginalized groups of youth in diverse settings. She and her team are currently working on adaptations and evaluations of the Healthy Relationships Plus program for LGBT2Q+ youth in school and community settings, as well as looking at fit and feasibility in the youth justice system. Another major focus of her work is on developing and evaluating culturally-relevant, strengths-based approaches with Indigenous youth. More recently, she was awarded a grant to evaluate MindUP with kindergarten students, within a trauma-informed framework. MindUP is an evidence-based social and emotional learning program that incorporates positive psychology, neuroscience, and mindful awareness.
Dr. Crooks’ other main focus is on family violence. She is a co-founder of the Caring Dads program, which is a parenting intervention for men who have maltreated (or are at-risk to maltreat) their children. In 2005, Dr. Crooks testified before the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights on the extent to which Canada is meeting its obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. In 2016 Dr. Crooks was appointed to the Scientific Committee for the Status of Women Canada, to advise the federal government on the state of research evidence pertaining to the prevention of gender-based violence.
Walter S. DeKeseredy
Walter S. DeKeseredy is Anna Deane Carlson Endowed Chair of Social Sciences, Director of the Research Center on Violence, and Professor of Sociology at West Virginia University. He has published 24 books, 100 scientific journal articles and 83 scholarly book chapters on violence against women and other social problems. In 2008, the Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma gave him the Linda Saltzman Memorial Intimate Partner Violence Researcher Award. He also jointly received the 2004 Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology's (ASC) Division on Women and Crime and the 2007 inaugural UOIT Research Excellence Award. In 1995, he received the Critical Criminologist of the Year Award from the ASC’s Division on Critical Criminology (DCC) and in 2008 the DCC gave him the Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014, he received the Critical Criminal Justice Scholar Award from the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences' (ACJS) Section on Critical Criminal Justice and in 2015, he received the Career Achievement Award from the ASC's Division on Victimology. In 2017, he received the Impact Award from the ACJS’s section on Victimology and the Robert Jerrin Book Award from the ASC’s Division on Victimology.
Molly Dragiewicz
Molly Dragiewicz is Associate Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University in Australia. Dragiewicz is an internationally award-winning criminologist who studies violence, gender, and technology. She completed world-first studies of women's experiences of technology-facilitated coercive control and how children are involved in technology-facilitated abuse.
Dragiewicz is highly involved in interdisciplinary, collaborative research with community organisations working to end violence against women. She is a frequently invited speaker and trainer for judicial officers, lawyers, first-responders, domestic violence advocates, and universities. She founded Australia’s first interdisciplinary graduate certificate in domestic violence. Dragiewicz serves on the Board of Queensland’s Domestic and Family Violence Death Review Advisory Board.
Dragiewicz won the 2021 Vice Chancellor’s Research Excellence Award Gender Equity Research Network Team Special Commendation; 2019 Saltzman Award for Contributions to Practice from the American Society of Criminology Division on Women and Crime; 2018 Domestic Violence Prevention Leadership Award from the Domestic Violence Prevention Centre Gold Coast; 2017 Robert Jerin Book of the Year Award for Abusive endings: Separation and divorce violence against women from the American Society of Criminology Division on Victimology; Queensland University of Technology Vice Chancellor’s Performance Award for Research in 2016; 2012 Critical Criminologist of the Year Award from the American Society of Criminology Division on Critical Criminology; and 2009 New Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology Division on Women and Crime.
m.dragiewicz@griffith.edu.au
@mollydragiewicz
https://www.mollydragiewicz.com/
Jordan Fairbairn
Dr. Jordan Fairbairn is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, King’s University College at Western University, London, Ontario. Her research focuses broadly on gender, feminist criminology, violence, and media, with a focus on intimate femicide and the role of media in gender-based violence prevention. Dr. Fairbairn is a member of the expert panel of the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability (CFOJA) and was previously Co-Investigator with the Canadian Domestic Homicide Prevention Initiative with Vulnerable Populations (CDHPIVP). Previous and ongoing work explores Canadian news portrayals of femicide, and including a current SSHRC Insight Grant Project (2021-2025) titled “Representing intimate femicide in Canada: Understanding media framing of gender-related killings of women and girls, 2010-2024”, in collaboration with Dr. Myrna Dawson (Co-Applicant) and Dr. Yasmin Jiwani (Collaborator). Recent publications have focused on changing news media representation of intimate partner femicide as prevention work; feminist criminology, intersectionality, and intimate partner violence; preventing domestic homicides among vulnerable populations, the role of social media in VAW prevention, and developing stronger social responses to youth dating violence.
Lori Haskell
Dr. Lori Haskell is a clinical psychologist in private practice. Dr. Haskell’s clinical interests include trauma, revictimization, sexual abuse and sexual violence in relation to psychological development. She has a status appointment as an assistant professor in psychiatry at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Haskell's research work has focused on victimization and its effects, violence prevention, and trauma and psychological development. She is currently working on projects addressing the impact of trauma on Aboriginal peoples, trauma and the service challenges for developmentally disabled people, and restorative justice and gendered violence. Dr. Haskell has written a book entitled First Stage Trauma Treatment: A Guide for Therapists Working with Women (Toronto: CAMH, University of Toronto, 2003).
In recent years she has presented to the Canadian judiciary, both nationally and provincially, on behalf of the National Judicial Institute in Ottawa. She has also provided expert evidence in a number of legal proceedings. Most recently, she testified at the Coroners Inquest of the domestic homicide of Sunny Park, her son and parents.
Yasmin Jiwani
Yasmin Jiwani is a full Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University, Montreal. She is the author of Discourses of Denial: Mediations of Race, Gender and Violence, as well as co-editor of Girlhood, Redefining the Limits, and Faces of Violence in the Lives of Girls. Her work has appeared in a wide variety of journals and anthologies. Her research interests include mediations of race, gender and violence in the press, as well as representations of women of colour in popular media. She is currently the Concordia University Research Chair in Intersectionality, Violence and Resistance.
Alan Leschied
Dr. Alan Leschied BA, MEd, PhD is a psychologist and professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Western Ontario, and began working in children’s mental health in 1977 at the London Family Court Clinic. Currently he serves on the advisory committees to the Centre of Excellence in Children’s Mental Health at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, the Research Advisory Committee of the Child Welfare Secretariat for the Ministry of Children and Youth and the research advisory committee with Correctional Services Canada.
Dr. Leschied a Fellow of the Canadian Psychology Association, a recipient in 2003 of both the Edward G. Pleva Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Judge Wendy Robson Award for outstanding service to children in Ontario and in 2004, the recipient of a life-time achievement award through the Criminal Justice Section of the Canadian Psychology Association.
Robin Mason
Robin Mason is a scientist in the Violence and Health research program at Women’s College Hospital, Women’s College Research Institute and an Assistant Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health with a cross-appointment to the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. She is also the Scientific Lead for Women’s Xchange, a research knowledge and exchange centre focused on supporting and disseminating women’s health research across the province of Ontario and ensuring the integration of sex and gender in all health research. Dr. Mason has been working in the field of intimate partner violence and medical education for nearly 20 years, has contributed to policies at the local, provincial and national level; and, developed four evidence-informed online curricula.
Her work is focused on improving the systems’ response to women who experience abuse and related sequelae by educating health and social service providers, developing policies and guidelines to reduce barriers and improve practices, and giving voice to diverse women’s needs and preferences. She has received multiple awards for her contributions to the field of medical education including the Nursing Network on Violence Against Women International's Excellence in Education award (2012).
Melanie Randall
Melanie Randall is a Professor with the Faculty of Law. She held the Scotiabank Professorship with the Centre for Research on Violence Against Women and Children, at the University of Western Ontario from 1999-2004. Her current teaching and research interests are in the areas of sex discrimination and legal theory. Her publications include articles on the issue of women's autonomy rights, and on sexual violence in women's lives, including state accountability for responding to and remedying this violence, particularly through law.
Susan Rodger
Susan is a psychologist and professor at the Faculty of Education, the University of Western Ontario. She received her BA in Philosophy and Fine Art from Wilfrid Laurier University in 1979, and her PhD in psychology from the University of Western Ontario in 2001. Before joining the Faculty of Education in 2002, she was the Coordinator of First Year Programs at Western. In 1998 she created an award-winning academic mentoring and leadership development program for university students. She has presented workshops for educators in B.C., Ontario and Saskatchewan on this work and continues to focus her research activities, in different contexts, on academic success. Her main research interests include student success, teacher effectiveness, student anxiety, child welfare and violence. She is currently working on two national projects developing resources for teacher wellness and supporting child and youth mental health in schools.
Charlene Y. Senn
Charlene Y. Senn is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Sexual Violence and Professor of Psychology and Women’s & Gender Studies at the University of Windsor. Her research centres on effective interventions for sexual violence (SV) and puts feminist and social psychological theories into practice.
With Canadian Institutes of Health Research funding, she developed the Enhanced Assess, Acknowledge, Act (EAAA, aka Flip the Script) sexual assault resistance education program for university women that reduces the SV they experience by 50% across one year. The positive effects last for at least two years. EAAA is being implemented on campuses in North America, New Zealand, and Australia, and adapted in Swaziland and for younger girls (14-17) and transgender students (SARECentre.org). With Anne Forrest, Charlene also works on another piece of the campus SA prevention puzzle to institutionalize effective bystander education for students of all genders (www.uwindsor.ca/bystander) and to evaluate its impact.
Dora Tam
Dr. Dora Tam, Professor, Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary. Dora has an active research agenda on intimate partner violence against women, racialized youth delinquent, child and youth mental health, and professional suitability for social work practice that involves successful funding from CIHR, SSHRC, and multiple internationals grants as the Principal Applicant, Sole-investigator, Co-investigator, or Research Associate since 2000. Dora also has solid record in coaching and supervising student assistants on these research projects; publishing actively in refereed journals, and presenting at international and national conferences. Among all, Dora has been engaging in collaborative research projects aimed at developing evidence-informed practice to address violence against women and children. Specifically, Dora is a strong advocate for those racialized newcomers who have experienced additional systematic barriers that have prevented racialized women to free from violence and to integrate successfully into the Canadian society.
Leslie Tutty
Dr. Leslie Tutty is a professor emerita with the Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary where she taught courses in clinical social work and research. Over the past thirty years, her research focused on services for domestic violence including evaluations of shelter and post-shelter programs for abused women, support groups for abused women, treatment for adult and child victims of sexual abuse and groups for men who abuse their partners. Her extensive body of research on partner violence spans the perspectives of social services, justice, health and mental health and addresses prevention, intervention and policy.
Dr. Tutty was the primary investigator or co-investigator of a number of research awards including such grants as SSHRC’s Community University Research Alliance initiatives (two awards), SSHRC operating grants, Status of Women Canada awards, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. From 1999 to 2011 she served as the Research Coordinator of RESOLVE Alberta.
Leslie M. Tutty, PhD
Professor Emerita
Faculty of Social Work,
University of Calgary
Phone: 1-403-627-3232
Sandy Welsh
Sandy Welsh, PhD is currently the Vice Provost, Students and Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. Professor Welsh’s research and publications focus on workplace and sexual harassment and how changes in the legal environment affect the experience of harassment as well as employer responses. Her work has received support from SSHRC and Status of Women Canada. She also provides expert testimony on sexual harassment for the Ontario and Canadian Human Rights Commissions and in other legal forums. Professor Welsh also is co-PI on a CIHR-funded project investigating regulatory changes to complementary/alternative medicine occupations. From 2015-2017, Professor Welsh served in an advisory role on the Ontario Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Sexual Violence Reporting Advisory Committee as it developed a province-wide sexual violence survey for postsecondary students. Professor Welsh holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Indiana University – Bloomington (1994)
Community Research Associates
View Community Research Associates
Mohammed Baobaid
Mohammed Baobaid earned his doctoral degree from the institute of Psychology at the University of Erlangen Nurnberg in Germany. He is the founder of the Muslim Family Safety Project that addresses Domestic Violence in the Muslim community of London Ontario Canada. Dr. Baobaid is currently the executive Director of the Muslim Resource Centre for Social Support and Integration in Canada and working on some innovative projects.
He is also a research associate at the Centre for Research and Education on Violence against Women and Children at the Western University. His research areas include cross-cultural perspectives on preventing domestic violence in Immigrant Communities; In addition, he has trained mainstream service providers about working with families coming from collectivist societies who have expressed violence in their families. In 2009, 2010 and 2011, he was named one of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world. Dr. Baobaid was the second recipient of Every Day Hero Award of the Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children at the Western University, London, Ontario Canada. He was also the 2011 John Robinson Award recipient and one of the recipients of the 2012 Attorney General's Victim Services Awards of Distinction.
Vicky Smallman
Vicky Smallman is the National Director of Women's and Human Rights for the Canadian Labour Congress, the national voice of the labour movement, representing 3.3 million Canadian workers. A long-time activist on women's and equality issues, Vicky spent more than a decade in the academic labour movement, working primarily with contract academic staff before joining the CLC in 2010. In her capacity at the CLC, Vicky leads a team responsible for policy, campaigns and advocacy on a range of human rights issues impacting women and other equity-seeking groups. Vicky helped develop the ground-breaking 2014 survey on Domestic Violence in the Workplace and leads the CLC’s advocacy for better legislation and workplace supports for workers experiencing domestic violence and other forms of gender-based violence and harassment in the world of work.
Mandy Bonisteel
Mandy Bonisteel has worked as an anti-violence advocate, consultant and therapist for over 20 years. She has worked with both survivors and perpetrators of violence. Her international work includes: trauma support and community development training with women in Kosovo; NGO capacity building and Family Medicine Nursing curriculum development in Bosnia and Herzegovina; training and curriculum recommendations for nurses and social workers in Namibia involved in anti-violence work; consultancy regarding governmental reform (CEDAW) implementation in Azerbaijan and; participatory gender research presentations at the Association for Women in Development in Mexico. This paper "Measuring Empowerment - The Application of an Empowerment Model to Nursing Development in Bosnia and Herzegovina" is available here.
In Ontario, she authored the Ontario CAS/VAW Collaborative Curriculum for workers supporting children who have witnessed women abuse, developed the Respect-At-Work training materials for CRVAW and delivers curriculum design training to educators. Mandy coordinates the Assaulted Women's and Children's Counsellor/Advocate Program at George Brown College, a unique combination of feminist counselling and social justice courses that combine the skills of support and activism needed to advocate for women, their children, and their communities. Mandy teaches on-line as well as in the classroom and has considerable experience working in diverse environments as well as with diverse learning communities with varying needs. Mandy is a recipient of the Ontario Medal of Citizenship.
Jacquie Carr
Jacquie Carr is a proponent for social, legal, economic and political equality for all persons and to that end engages in her work. Jacquie brings the focus and wisdom gained during her 7 years of diverse experience in her roles as advocate, researcher, educator, and facilitator to the field of sexual harassment prevention.
Jacquie is a certified trainer for the Respect at Work training approach and contributed to the development of the package.
Jacquie has experienced the privilege of sharing the work of valuable projects in the arena of sexual harassment including serving as a member of the coordinating committee and presenter for an innovative, cross sectoral conference, contributor to a video and accompanying discussion guide, promotion of same.
One of Jacquie’s most recent accomplishments as a research team member is the publication of “Workplace Harassment and Violence”, a participatory action research report identifying the range of women’s experience of harassment and violence in the workplace and the resulting harm.
Sly Castaldi
Sly Castaldi is the Executive Director of Guelph-Wellington Women in Crisis and has been involved in the anti-violence sector for 29 years. Sly has served as President of the Board of Directors and Founding Member of the Legal Clinic of Guelph and Wellington County, Chair and Founding Member of the Guelph-Wellington Action Committee on Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, Chair and Founder of the Safe City Committee, and Executive Member of the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centers. Sly was also a Member of the Board of Directors of Victim Services Wellington and a Founding Member of the Sexual Assault Care and Treatment Program at the Guelph General Hospital.
She was appointed to the Minister Responsible for Women’s Issues Domestic Violence Advisory Council (2007-2009). Sly was the recipient of the Women of Distinction award in the category of Public Service, 2010 and also served as Honorary Chair of Women of Distinction in 2011. More recently she was awarded the Diamond Jubilee Medal on June 25th, 2012 and was appointed Co-Chair of the Premier’s Roundtable on Violence Against Women from 2015 to Feb. 2018. Sly was also a recipient of the Community Award from Crime Prevention Ontario.
Pamela Cross
Pamela Cross is a feminist lawyer who works on the issue of violence against women and the law. She is the Legal Director of Luke’s Place in Durham Region and works with women’s anti-violence organizations across the province, including the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic, the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, the National Association of Women and the Law and the Women’s Sexual Assault Centre of Renfrew County.
Her research addresses such topics as:
- The need for family violence screening tools for family law lawyers
- The challenges of shared parenting in cases of family violence
- The challenges of a family court system that does not employ a gender-based analysis
Pamela is a frequent speaker at national conferences and blogs regularly on issues related to women’s equality, violence against women and social justice at www.pamelacross.ca.
Tim Kelly
Tim Kelly is the Executive Director of Changing Ways , a program for men who abuse women in London and Middlesex County, Chatham/Kent County and St. Thomas/Elgin County. He has spoken nationally and internationally on issues related to violence against women and children and community collaborations.
His interest has recently turned in two directions, the first is to expanding the scope of community collaboration and has been working on a Provincial initiative, Neighbours, Friends and Families, a project that provides woman abuse information, training and support to neighbours, friends and families who live with and support abused women. Secondly, his clinical direction has turned to working with maltreating fathers in partnership with the university, the justice system, woman's advocates and children's advocates to develop and implement Caring Dad's: Helping father value their children, an intervention program with fathers who abuse their children or have exposed their children to woman abuse.
Tracey Foreman
Tracey Foreman, BSW, MSW, RSW is a clinical social worker with over 30 years of professional experience in human service, community and government criminal justice milieus.
As a private, community and government practitioner, Tracey has provided direct and indirect service to individuals, families, groups, organizations and communities. Her areas of specialization include diverse human justice and the law, public safety and offender accountability practice issues, victims and perpetrators of violence against women and children, mental health, addiction, crisis and trauma response, the management of police stress syndromes and the development and delivery of multidisciplinary professional training.
Tracey joined the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services in 1990, serving in several clinical roles before advancing to the position of Deputy Superintendent at the maximum security Sarnia Jail. She has been appointed to a wide variety of management assignments at regional and corporate levels, including postings with the Office of the Assistant Deputy Minister, Adult Community Corrections.
Since 2005, Tracey has led the Ontario Correctional Services response to the government’s Domestic Violence Action Plan, and currently serves as Domestic Violence InterMinisterial Coordinator, providing advice and consultation, direct service, professional development training and interministerial, intergovernmental and public representation of Corrections. In recognition of her service to law enforcement in Canada, she is a recipient of the Corrections Exemplary Service Medal.Ray Hughes
Ray Hughes has over 30 years of experience in education as a teacher, Department Head, University Lecturer, and Consultant. He was most recently the National Education Coordinator for the Fourth R where he coordinated the implementation of the Fourth R in collaboration with partners and school boards.
Previously, Ray was involved in coordinating the implementation of violence prevention programs for 190 schools and 80,000 students in his position as the Learning Coordinator for Violence Prevention with the Thames Valley District School Board in London, Ontario. He was also a member of the Ontario Safe Schools Action Team, whose mandate was to draw on best practices from across Ontario and to advise the Minister of Education on all aspects of school safety. Ray continues to provide regular professional development to superintendents, school administrators, teachers, parents, and students on violence prevention and safe schools initiatives. He has developed and implemented school-based programs related to substance abuse, domestic violence, gender equity, dating violence, human sexuality, interpersonal violence, conflict resolution, and bullying prevention. Ray has also developed a safe schools course for teacher candidates in Faculties of Education.
Ray received his Bachelor of Physical and Health Education (B.P.H.E.) from the University of Toronto, and his B.Ed. (Physical Education and Science) and M.Ed. (Curriculum) from Western University.
Joy Lang
Joy Lang was the founding Director of the Chatham Kent Women's Centre Inc. and worked there for 21 years (1979-2000). She was actively involved in enhancing services and training related to woman abuse in her county and across the province of Ontario. Joy was a founding Director of the Chatham-Kent County Task Force on Family Violence and the Chatham-Kent County Child Abuse Co-ordinating Committee. She has continued to be involved in the areas of woman abuse, sexual harassment, homelessness and domestic violence through her participation in research and clinical services at The Centre for Children and Families in the Justice System of the London Family Court Clinic, The Centre for Research & Education on Violence against Women & Children at Western University, the London Homeless Coalition and The London Co-ordinating Committee to End Woman Abuse.
Jen MacGregor
Jen MacGregor is a Senior Research Associate in the the Faculty of Information & Media Studies at Western University. She is a member of the Domestic Violence at Work Network (DV@Work) and was a lead researcher on the first Canadian national study on the impacts of domestic violence on the workplace. Currently her work focuses on health and social service sector responses to family violence.
Margaret MacPherson
Margaret MacPherson has worked as a freelance public servant since leaving government in 2009. She has been involved with and led anti-violence initiatives and social change projects for over thirty years. Margaret convenes the Southwest Region Violence Against Women Coordinating Table (SWRCC) and the Building A Bigger Wave Ontario Network for VAW Coordinating Committees.
Margaret works closely with CREVAWC on a number of initiatives including the Make It Our Business workplace domestic violence program and the adaptation of Neighbours, Friends and Families (NFF) as a national campaign on abuse of older adults called It’s Not Right! Neighbours, Friends and Families for Older Adults.
Maureen Reid
Maureen Reid retired after 32 years of working in child protection where she oversaw a unit of forty, front-line child protection workers with specializations in the areas of sexual abuse and domestic violence. During her career, Maureen developed a treatment program for families where sexual abuse has been verified. It offered individual, group and family therapy for child victims, non-implicated parents, fathers who had sexually offended and adolescents who had offended while in a caretaking or sibling role. She co-facilitated therapy groups as well as consulted on hundreds of cases over the twenty-five years the program was operating.
Maureen also co-authored and implemented an interagency community protocol for responding to infants living in high-risk environments. This protocol has been adapted in several communities in Ontario. In 2010, Maureen authored and chaired an interagency committee to implement a community protocol for managing high-risk domestic violence cases. She chaired over forty, high-risk domestic violence safety planning conferences that included the woman, her supports and representatives from the Criminal Justice and Violence Against Women sectors coming together to develop coordinated safety plans and risk management strategies. Currently she consults and provides clinical debriefing to staff group and professionals working with victims of violence.
Deborah Sinclair
Deborah Sinclair is a social worker in independent practice in Toronto, ON. Throughout her career in human rights, public health prevention, and social justice work, Deborah has worked in many different capacities—as clinician, writer, speaker, trainer, researcher, policy advisor and expert witness. She currently has a clinical practice in Toronto, Ontario specializing in work with trauma survivors and their families as well as professionals and advocates who suffer the effects of complex PTSD/VT/Burnout.
In January 2003, she was appointed to the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee (DVDRC), an expert advisory committee of the Ontario Chief Coroner’s office. The DVDRC is Canada’s first death review committee and has served as a model for other provinces to encourage the development of a national strategy to end intimate femicide.
She has served as an expert witness in more than fifty court cases.
From 2013 to 2014, Deborah served as a resource person for the National Task Force on Sex Trafficking of Women and Girls in Canada. She currently sits on the advisory board of the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking.
Deborah is the YWCA 2010 Woman of Distinction for Social Justice and is currently a PhD candidate at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto.
Ashley Sisco-Savage
Dr. Ashley Sisco is an academic and researcher specializing in Community-Based Partnership Research with Indigenous communities in Canada and Australia. Ashley is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate with Western University’s Faculty of Education, investigating the process and outcomes of the development of an Indigenous research centre at Western in partnership with the First Nations with Schools Collective (FNWSC), a group of eight First nations across Ontario.
Ashley has a Ph.D. in Education (cross Faculty with Law and Indigenous Studies) with the University of Wollongong in Australia. She was the recipient of the 2015 School of Education Outstanding Thesis Award for her thesis, a community-based partnership research project with the Carcross/Tagish First Nation in the Yukon and the Narungga community of Point Pearce in South Australia on applying an Indigenous relational framework to consultations. She also holds a Master’s Degree in Canadian Studies (Indigenous and Northern Studies Stream) from Carleton University and an Honors Specialization Anthropology Degree from Western University for both of which she spent significant time working with Inuit communities in Nunavut.
As a professional Research Consultant through her firm, Sisco & Associates Consulting Services Inc., Ashley also works with Indigenous communities across Canada to support them in achieving their goals. For more information, please visit: ashleysisco.com/consulting.
AnnaLise Trudell
Dr. AnnaLise Trudell is a gender-equity consultant and the manager of Education, Training & Research at Anova, the women’s shelter and sexual assault centre in London Ontario. She brings extensive analysis of the causes and impacts of gender-based violence and of prevention programming through her doctoral and postdoctoral research at Western University. As Manager at Anova for over a decade, she has overseen the facilitation, curriculum development and evaluation of youth anti-violence programming and professional trainings. She is a seasoned public educator and facilitator with over 800 lectures and presentations engaging youth, professionals & post-secondary students through public education.
Research Scholars
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Helene Berman
Helene Berman, RN, PhD, is a Distinguished University Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing, a Fellow in the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, and founding Academic Director of the Centre for Research on Health Equity and Social Inclusion. Her research program, funded by CIHR, SSHRC, and Status of Women Canada, addresses the subtle and explicit forms of violence experienced by women and children. Always pushing boundaries, her research is participatory, engaged, and activist. Dr. Berman uses diverse methodologies, including arts-based approaches, to examine topics that may be difficult to uncover through more traditional methods. She is currently working with colleagues in Canada and Rwanda to address gender-based violence, and more recently received funding for an Interdisciplinary Development Initiative focused on Global Health Equity. Her contributions are nationally and internationally recognized and she credits much of her success to the remarkable students, colleagues, and young people with whom she has been privileged to work. Helene is lead editor of the anthology Faces of Violence in the Lives of Girls (Althouse Press, 2014) and is the recipient of the Nursing Network on Violence against Women International 2015 Excellence in Research Award.
Myrna Dawson
Dr. Myrna Dawson is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Public Policy in Criminal Justice and Director of the Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence (CSSLRV), College of Social and Applied Human Sciences, University of Guelph. Her research focuses on trends/patterns in and social/legal responses to violence with emphasis on violence against women and femicide. Dawson established the CSSLRV in 2005 with funding from the Canadian Foundation of Innovation to support the establishment of a research centre focusing research activities on understanding and preventing violence. In 2008, Dawson received funding to expand the CSSLRV to create/mobilize knowledge about effective violence prevention through rigorous research, exchange of knowledge to inform policy, and to train future researchers. Dawson is also Co-Director of the recently-established Canadian Domestic Homicide Prevention Initiative (www.cdhpi.ca). In 2002, Dawson served as an expert witness at the Ontario Coroner’s Inquest into the killing of Gillian Hadley of Pickering by her ex-husband. She now serves as member of Canada’s first Domestic Violence Death Review Committee implemented in Ontario as a result of one of the inquest recommendations. Dawson has been an International Visiting Scholar, Faculty of Law, University of Melbourne, 2011; a TC Beirne School of Law Distinguished Visiting Fellow, University of Queensland, 2012; and a Visiting Scholar, Griffith University, Queensland, 2016, where she was recently appointed an Adjunct Professor.
C. Nadine Wathen
Nadine Wathen, PhD is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Mobilizing Knowledge on Gender-Based Violence in the Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing and the Faculty of Information & Media Studies at Western University, and is a Research Scholar at Western’s Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children. She is a Member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada.Nadine’s research examines the health and social service sector response to gender-based violence, interventions to reduce health inequities, and the science of knowledge mobilization. A particular focus is developing woman-centred interventions that enhance health equity, and take a gendered, trauma- and violence-informed approach to providing services for those experiencing violence and/or marginalization. She is deeply committed to a partnership approach to research and knowledge sharing and has led a number of federally funded research initiatives, and international research and knowledge mobilization networks.
www.nadinewathen.ca :: nwathen@uwo.ca :: @NadineWathen
David A. Wolfe
Dr. David Wolfe is a psychologist specializing in issues affecting children and youth. He has pioneered new approaches to preventing many societal youth problems such as child abuse, bullying, relationship violence and substance abuse through universal education programs. His Fourth R program is taught in more than 5,000 schools in Canada and the U.S., and has been identified as a promising violence prevention strategy by numerous reviews of evidence-based programs for youth.
Dr. Wolfe has broad research and clinical interests in abnormal child and adolescent psychology, with a special focus on child abuse, domestic violence, and developmental psychopathology. He has authored numerous articles on these topics, especially in relationship to the impact of early childhood trauma on later development in childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. Dr. Wolfe has been pioneering new approaches to preventing many societal youth problems such as bullying, relationship violence, and substance abuse. David recently received the Donald O. Hebb Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology as a Science from the Canadian Psychological Association, and the Blanche L. Ittleson Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Delivery of Children’s Services and the Promotion of Children’s Mental Health from the American Orthopsychiatry Association.
