Conference Schedule
There will be 12 CEUs available for this conference!
All Sessions (unless otherwise noted) provide both Offender Treatment & Trauma-Informed CEU credits
There will be 12 CEUs available for this conference!
All Sessions (unless otherwise noted) provide both Offender Treatment & Trauma-Informed CEU credits
Welcome 8:45 am - 9:00 am
with DVS Conference Committee
Information soon!
Keynote Lecture 9:00 am - 10:00 am
The Science and Power of Hope: The Power of Possibility
with Angela Pharris, PhD, LAPSW-TN
Hope isn’t wishful thinking—it’s a measurable, powerful predictor of well-being, resilience, and success. In this dynamic keynote, Dr. Angela Pharris unpacks the science of hope as a transformative framework rooted in goals, pathways, and agency. Drawing on research and real-world application, Dr. Pharris will illuminate how hope fuels perseverance in the face of adversity and can be intentionally cultivated across communities, organizations, and systems.
Whether navigating burnout, supporting those impacted by trauma, or striving for equity in complex environments, participants will walk away with practical tools to nurture hope in themselves and others—and to harness it as a driving force for systemic and personal change.
Objectives
Gain a deeper understanding of the science behind hope and its three core components.
Explore the ways stress, trauma, and adversity affect our capacity for hope—and how to rebuild it.
Learn tangible, evidence-based strategies to embed hopeful thinking into your daily work and organizational culture.
SAMHSA Principles: Trustworthiness & Transparency, Peer Support, Collaboration & Mutuality, Empowerment (Voice & Choice)
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Break 10:00 am - 10:15 am
Break time: get a drink, go potty, pet an animal, breathe.
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Keynote Workshop 10:15 am - 12:00 pm
In practice AND Q&A with Keynote
(See the description above for the second half of this keynote)
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Lunch 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Lunch: nourish and restore
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Breakout Session: 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
1.1 Creating Resilience Through Stress
with Diane Vines, Director-NMT, LMFT-S, LPC-S, RPT-S
This workshop is designed to expose the myth that "children are naturally resilient". They aren't. Resilience is developed by stress in the safety of trusting relationships. The pattern of stress is what matters most. Learn what resilience is, how it develops and how to nurture it throughout life.
Objectives
Learn what factors lead toward developing resilience in childhood
Learn what factors lead toward developing vulnerability in childhood
Learn how vulnerable people can move toward resilience
SAMHSA Principles: Safety, Trustworthiness & Transparency, Peer Support, Collaboration & Mutuality, Empowerment (Voice & Choice)
1.2 Centering Survivorship & Fostering Wellness to Advance Liberation
with Fatima Jayoma
What do you carry? Each of us experiences harm in this life and has inherited the harm of those who came before us. This harm shapes the way we see and move through our world and brings great strengths and lessons to inform our way forward. We speak of resilience as a human capacity to navigate this harm, but rarely as an opportunity to create wellness as a pathway to healing and liberation. This training offers advocates and those supporting survivors an opportunity to enhance their capacity to foster wellness—within themselves, their organizations, and their communities.
Objectives
Identify strengths and assets gained through our experiences of trauma—individual, collective, historical, intergenerational, complex, and racial – and what we carry from them.
Gain an understanding of what resilience is and explore the key factors that support and strengthen it.
Explore tools and strategies for fostering resilience in ourselves, our agencies, and our communities.
SAMHSA Principles: Safety, Trustworthiness & Transparency, Peer Support, Collaboration & Mutuality, Empowerment (Voice & Choice), Cultural, Historical, & Gender Issues
1.3 Still We Rise: Advancing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging in a Time of Resistance
with Fiona Oliphant, Co-Founder and Principal Consultant & Jessica Li, Co-Founder/Principal Consultant/MPA, MBA
As attacks on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) intensify across the country—through legislation, funding restrictions, and political rhetoric—many nonprofit and domestic violence (GBV) organizations are being forced to choose between compliance and conscience. But the values that brought us to this work—dignity, justice, and safety for all—require that we continue pushing forward, even when the climate is hostile.
This workshop is designed for nonprofit and domestic violence advocates who are grappling with how to practice DEIB when the language itself is being banned, programs are being defunded, and backlash is growing. Together, we’ll explore how to stay grounded in our values, adapt our strategies, and continue to center marginalized communities—even when we can’t use the typical words or frameworks.
Objectives
Identify values-based strategies to continue advancing DEIB work.
Reflect on the emotional toll of this work and build collective resilience to continue moving forward.
Develop practical tools for staff and leadership to uphold inclusive practices, even in restrictive or defunded environments.
SAMHSA Principles: Safety, Trustworthiness & Transparency, Collaboration & Mutuality, Empowerment (Voice & Choice), Cultural, Historical, & Gender Issues
1.4 Empowering New Beginnings: Culturally Responsive Approaches to Supporting Accountability and Healing in Refugee Communities Impacted by Domestic Violence
with Yvonne Mok, CMHC, Clinical Director & Ivy Elmi, LCSW
This workshop explores culturally responsive strategies for addressing domestic violence (DV) within refugee communities in the United States. Refugees and forcibly displaced individuals often face layered challenges when navigating domestic violence, including language barriers, stigma, unfamiliarity with U.S. laws, immigration-related fears, and culturally embedded gender norms. These factors can significantly delay help-seeking and complicate clinical engagement.
Participants will gain insight into common barriers and risk factors contributing to family violence in resettlement contexts—such as trauma histories, patriarchal cultural norms, limited access to resources, and systemic inequities. The session will highlight how providers can integrate trauma-informed principles—such as safety, empowerment, collaboration, and cultural humility—into practice to foster trust and engagement.
Objectives
Identify key cultural, systemic, and trauma-related barriers that impact help-seeking and clinical engagement in refugee communities experiencing domestic violence.
Apply trauma-informed and culturally responsive strategies—including the effective use of interpreters, peer support, and community resources—to support both survivors and individuals who have used harm.
Demonstrate understanding of prevention-focused interventions, such as parenting programs and healthy relationship education, that address risk factors and promote safety and healing within resettled families.
SAMHSA Principles: Safety, Trustworthiness & Transparency, Peer Support, Collaboration & Mutuality, Empowerment (Voice & Choice), Cultural, Historical, & Gender Issues
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Break 2:30 pm - 2:45 pm
Break time: get a drink, go potty, pet an animal, breathe.
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Breakout Session: 2:45 pm - 4:15 pm
2.1 Partnering for Impact: Addressing DV through Flexible Resources and Survivor-Centered Health Strategies
with Cheniece Wilson, LSW
This workshop will highlight the impact the Ohio Domestic Violence Network's Health Access project has had on the holistic needs of survivors. Presenters will share the strategies used to address the needs associated with a survivor's social determinants of health through flexible financial assistance, mobile advocacy, and healthcare partnerships. Participants will learn the importance of building community partnerships with mental health and substance use clinicians, peer supporters, and health centers to provide safety and help empower survivors. Evaluation of the flexible financial assistance program will demonstrate the barriers that can be addressed for survivors accessing safe and holistic care.
Objectives
Participants will understand the key strategies necessary to implement flexible financial assistance projects in their communities.
Participants will learn the significant barriers survivors encounter when trying to access health and social service agencies.
Participants will be able to identify ways to build bi-lateral referral pathways for survivors in their communities.
SAMHSA Principles: Safety, Peer Support, Collaboration & Mutuality, Empowerment (Voice & Choice), Cultural, Historical, & Gender Issues
2.2 Cultivating Hope and Preventing Burnout in Trauma Work
with Cassie Odell, LCSW & Eric Pribyl, LCSW
This presentation addresses the critical issue of burnout among professionals working with traumatized populations, particularly those experiencing domestic violence and intimate partner violence (DV/IPV). The work of assisting individuals impacted by DV/IPV, while deeply meaningful, can expose professionals to vicarious trauma, leading to emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and a diminished sense of personal accomplishment—the core components of burnout. A key factor in mitigating burnout is the cultivation and sustainment of hope, both within the professional and the individuals they serve. This presentation will provide a framework for understanding the dynamics of hope and burnout, and offer practical, research-based strategies for fostering hope to prevent and address burnout. To enhance the practical application of this presentation, it will begin with a mindfulness-based exercise designed to ground and center the group, equipping participants with a tool they can use in their daily work. Additionally, an exercise involving letter-writing to one's future self will be incorporated to further engage the group and provide an additional tool for fostering hope and resilience.
Objectives
Understand the concepts of hope and burnout and analyze how they manifest in professionals working with traumatized individuals, specifically those affected by DV/IPV.
Identify and apply research-based strategies to address burnout and infuse hope into therapeutic interventions.
Develop and implement self-care strategies to sustain their own well-being, as well as their clients, recognize the early warning signs of burnout, and identify personal risk factors.
SAMHSA Principles: Safety, Trustworthiness & Transparency, Peer Support, Collaboration & Mutuality, Empowerment (Voice & Choice), Cultural, Historical, & Gender Issues
2.3 The Relationship Trust Boundary Model Training
with Olivia Verbeck, CMHC
The Relationship Trust Boundary is simple to learn and easy to use. The model teaches how to set and hold boundaries in any relationship, under any circumstance, and in all situations. The model is trauma-informed and is an excellent tool for helping us to understand the importance of trust in our relationships. This session provides a full training on the model so you can take it into your practice, your home, and ultimately your community. Together we can spread the awareness of how to set and hold boundaries in a safe and healthy way. Come receive a full training on the life-changing Relationship Trust Boundary Model!
Objectives
Attendees will have a clear definition of privacy and will understand how to use both emotional and physical boundaries to protect their privacy.
Attendees will understand how to use trust as a guide to help set boundaries in relationships and promoting safety.
Attendees will have the necessary skills to utilize the model in their practice in both a group and private counseling setting.
SAMHSA Principles: Safety, Trustworthiness & Transparency, Peer Support, Collaboration & Mutuality, Empowerment (Voice & Choice), Cultural, Historical, & Gender Issues
2.4 Reinforcing Resilience: Our Hope in Action
with Keri Jones-Fonnesbeck, LCSW; Deputy Director, Trauma Informed Utah
Reinforcing our own resilience is necessary for our long-term sustainability in this work. But what about reinforcing resilience within our organizations? We, the workers, design and reinforce the culture within the organizational walls we find ourselves, but too often we get to burnout or exhaustion without enough hope. Our Hope is a pre-requisite of our intervention – it’s not a feeling, but an action. It’s a decision we make each day, and it’s necessary for reinforcing hope for the collective organizational framework.
Objectives
Participants will gain an understanding of the hope framework within SAMSHA’s six key principles.
Participants will gain an understanding of how the six key principles interact with the 10 organizational domains, and how to use them to reinforce change.
Participants will leave with 2-3 new trauma-informed tools tools to apply in their daily roles.
SAMHSA Principles: Safety, Trustworthiness & Transparency, Peer Support, Collaboration & Mutuality, Empowerment (Voice & Choice), Cultural, Historical, & Gender Issues
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Close of Day 1!
We will see you tomorrow at 9:00 am!
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Welcome 8:45 am - 9:00 am
with DVS Conference Committee
Keynote Lecture 9:00 am - 10:00 am
Trauma & Intimate Partner Violence (Strength at Home)
with Casey Taft, Ph.D.
This lecture will focus on the problem of intimate partner violence (IPV) in trauma-exposed populations. The speaker will discuss the etiology of IPV, with a particular focus on how trauma may influence the ways in which we view and interpret our social world. Theories relating to trauma and intimate partner aggression will be described and discussed. This discussion will also focus on common risk factors for IPV, such as posttraumatic stress disorder, head injury, and substance abuse, and core themes underlying trauma and relationship problems such as trust, self-esteem, power and control, and guilt and shame. The discussion then shifts to how to effectively intervene with those who use IPV in relationships. The speaker will describe the Strength at Home program for IPV that he developed, as well as scientific evidence for the intervention.
Objectives
Review social information processing model for intimate partner violence.
Review challenges to violence prevention and strategies for overcoming these challenges.
Describe recent research on Strength at Home programs.
SAMHSA Principles: Safety, Trustworthiness & Transparency, Peer Support, Collaboration & Mutuality, Empowerment (Voice & Choice), Cultural, Historical, & Gender Issues
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Break 10:00 am - 10:15 am
Break time: get a drink, go potty, pet an animal, breathe.
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Keynote Workshop & Q&A 10:15 am - 12:00 pm
In practice AND Q&A with Keynote
(See the description above for the second half of this keynote)
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Lunch 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Lunch: nourish and restore
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Breakout Session: 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
1.1 Motivating Change in Clients Who Use Violence
with Casey Taft, Ph.D.
This session focuses on how to motivate clients to work on issues related to intimate partner violence (IPV), how to develop a positive therapeutic relationship, and how to build a cohesive group environment. This training will discuss specific strategies for integrating a trauma informed approach to working with people who use violence and are court mandated to receive intervention. Potential motivational challenges with this population will be discussed along with strategies to overcome these barriers and promote behavioral change. The Stages of Change Model will be reviewed to describe stages of intentional behavior change. Specific “Motivational Interviewing” strategies for increasing motivation among violent individuals and eliciting personal change goals will be described, with video examples provided and opportunity for group practice.
Objectives
Explain the Stages of Change model as it applies to those who use violence and aggression.
Describe motivational challenges for those court mandated to intervention for violent behavior.
Understand “Motivational Interviewing” strategies for increasing motivation among violent individuals and eliciting personal change goals
SAMHSA Principles: Safety, Trustworthiness & Transparency, Peer Support, Collaboration & Mutuality, Empowerment (Voice & Choice), Cultural, Historical, & Gender Issues
1.2 SAFeR: A Systematic Approach to Assist IPV Survivors and Their Children
with Ana Martinez-Mullen, Esq., Tracy Shoberg, Esq. & Diana Griffin, Esq.
Families who experience intimate partner violence (IPV) benefit most from responses and interventions tailored to meet their specific needs. In this presentation participants will learn the evidence-based and systematic SAFeR Approach. As its name implies, SAFeR guides system practitioners to produce safer, more workable outcomes for survivors and their children through guiding professionals to systematically Screen for IPV in every case, Assess the full nature and context of any IPV that is detected, Focus on the Effects of the IPV, and Respond to the lived experience of survivors and their children through crafting tailored responses, interventions, and services.
Objectives
Identify the elements of the SAFeR approach.
Apply a SAFeR framework for identifying, assessing, and responding to intimate partner violence (IPV) in parenting cases.
Develop responses that account for the nature, context, and effects of IPV.
SAMHSA Principles: Safety, Trustworthiness & Transparency, Peer Support, Collaboration & Mutuality, Empowerment (Voice & Choice)
1.3 Data as a Catalyst for Systems Change
with Katie Allaway, Product Director
Organizations are mandated to collect and maintain a wide array of data for their federal and community partners for the purpose of documenting that grant goals and objectives were met. However, the data collected, is more than just a count – it is a story, the collective story, of how our organizations work to support, and create change, within our communities.
In this session Katie Hughes, Vela Product Director, will share how organizations within the Domestic and Sexual Assault movement can use the data they are collecting to better understand their work, implement structural change within their organizations that better support advocates and survivors, and create systems change in how the collective story is understood, and cared for, by their wider communities. Celebrating the shared effort of so many advocates that came together to originally create Vela, and lifting their continued work to create something meaningful and new in the field, this session will dynamically navigate the complexities between funder obligations and movement-making.
Objectives
Understand how data and storytelling are connected to survivor-centered approaches.
Connect each staff person's individual relationship to technology to their capacity for data storytelling.
Hear how organizations can use data to create systems change.
SAMHSA Principles: Safety, Cultural, Historical, & Gender Issues
1.4 Workshop Title - Coming soon!
with NAME
Description
Objectives
Objectives here
Objectives here
Objectives here
SAMHSA Principles: Safety, Trustworthiness
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Break 2:30 pm - 2:45 pm
Break time: get a drink, go potty, pet an animal, breathe.
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Closing Keynote 2:45 pm - 4:45 pm
Beyond One-Size-Fits-All: The Safe & Together Model and the Power of Intersectional Practice
with Leah Vejzovic, LMSW
This keynote provides participants with both foundational knowledge and advanced practice insights into the Safe & Together Model's approach to domestic violence and child welfare. Participants will gain a comprehensive understanding of the model's cross-cutting themes, core principles, and critical components that guide practitioners in partnering with the non-offending parent, engaging with the perpetrator as the source of risk, and keeping the children safe and together with protective parents, whenever possible.
The session also explores the critical concept of intersectionality within domestic violence work, examining how multiple identities, power dynamics, and systemic inequities shape both perpetrator patterns of coercive control and survivor experiences. Participants will learn how factors such as race, culture, immigration status, economic circumstances, sexual orientation, and disability status create unique vulnerabilities and strengths, and discover practical strategies for developing more nuanced, culturally responsive interventions that honor the complexity of families' lived experiences while maintaining focus on safety and accountability.
Objectives
Identify and apply the core principles and components of the Safe & Together Model to guide practice decisions that partner with non-offending parents, engage perpetrators as the source of risk, and prioritize child safety and family functioning.
Analyze how intersecting identities and power dynamics influence perpetrator patterns of coercive control and survivor experiences, including the impact of race, culture, immigration status, economic circumstances, sexual orientation, and disability status.
Develop culturally responsive intervention strategies that address the unique vulnerabilities and strengths created by intersectional factors while maintaining accountability and safety-focused practice.
SAMHSA Principles: Safety, Trustworthiness & Transparency, Collaboration & Mutuality, Empowerment (Voice & Choice), Cultural, Historical, & Gender Issues
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Close of Day 2!
Thank you for another excellent DV Solutions Conference!
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