Community Trainings

Presenters:

 Julie Germann is the founder of Finding the Right, LLC, where she provides training and technical assistance to improve responses to sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse. Ms. Germann is a former prosecutor with over a decade of experience prosecuting cases of violence against women and children. Ms. Germann has worked with sexual assault and child abuse multidisciplinary teams and trains nationally. She provides best practice reviews, and contributes to legislative advancements and policy manuals, such as the SART Toolkit published by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

David Keck is the Director of the National Center on Domestic Violence and Firearms, through the Battered Women’s Justice Project. He was appointed as Court Commissioner for Winnebago Co. in 2006, a position he held until retirement in 2016. He was instrumental in forming firearm surrender protocols for the courts in Wisconsin. Mr. Keck has been Director of the National Center since its inception in late 2016. He provides training and technical assistance on various topics surrounding domestic violence and firearms. 

1.50 credit hours have been applied for on behalf of MCLE. This training has been approved for 1.50 CJAD-FV hours. All attendees seeking LMFT, LPC, MSW, and TCOLE credit, must self-report through their own Department and/or Licensing Board.

Presenter:

Kelsey McKay is the president of RESPOND Against Violence and McKay Training & Consulting, LLC. Ms. McKay trains and consults nationally to strengthen how communities collaborate, investigate, and prosecute strangulation, sexual violence, and intimate partner violence cases. She develops experts to testify and trains on the implementation of a strangulation supplement and community collaboration. Previously, Ms. McKay was a prosecutor in Travis County, TX for 12 years

3.75 credit hours have been applied for on behalf of MCLE. This training has been approved for 3.75 CJAD-FV hours. All attendees seeking LMFT, LPC, MSW, and TCOLE credit, must self-report through their own Department and/or Licensing Board.

Presenters:

Elizabeth Boyce is the General Counsel and Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault.  Elizabeth has advocated for survivors for over 20 years, both in private practice and at non-profit organizations such as Texas Advocacy Project and Texas Legal Services Center.  At TAASA, Elizabeth directs the Policy and Advocacy Program, advancing the public policy interests of sexual assault survivors through research, education, lobbying, advocacy, and grassroots organizing.

Molly Voyles is the Interim Public Policy Director for the Texas Council on Family Violence (TCFV) and has worked at the coalition for 15 years and in the movement to end violence for over 25. In her position at TCFV, she provides technical assistance and training on a variety of issues including supporting survivor-centered systems, promotion of housing access, and privacy supports. She is focused on public policy efforts that center the needs of survivors and advance systems change.

Breall Baccus is a Public Policy Coordinator at Texas Council on Family Violence (TCFV). Her particular work at TCFV focuses on training and technical assistance on issues including privacy, technology and data collection.  Other professional passions include supporting college student survivors, prevention, and systems change to center the needs of survivors.

1.50 credit hours have been applied for on behalf of MCLE. This training has been approved for 1.50 CJAD-FV hours. All attendees seeking LMFT, LPC, MSW, and TCOLE credit, must self-report through their own Department and/or Licensing Board.

Presenters:

Justin Boardman is a retired police detective from the West Valley City Police Department in Utah. Det. Boardman, along with Donna Kelly, ESQ., co-authored a Trauma-Informed Victim Interview protocol for adult victims of sexual assault. This guideline uses the Neurobiology of Trauma to gain additional information to be used in an investigation and has been shown to increase prosecutions along with procedure changes. After retirement, Det. Boardman has focused on culture change within the community and presents and consults nationally and internationally on a variety of subjects.

Julie Germann is the founder of Finding the Right, LLC, where she provides training and technical assistance to improve responses to sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse. Ms. Germann is a former prosecutor with over a decade of experience prosecuting cases of violence against women and children. Ms. Germann has worked with sexual assault and child abuse multidisciplinary teams and trains nationally. She provides best practice reviews, and contributes to legislative advancements and policy manuals, such as the SART Toolkit published by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

Presenter:

Kelsey McKay is the president of RESPOND Against Violence and McKay Training & Consulting, LLC. Ms. McKay trains and consults nationally to strengthen how communities collaborate, investigate, and prosecute strangulation, sexual violence, and intimate partner violence cases. She develops experts to testify and trains on the implementation of a strangulation supplement and community collaboration. Previously, Ms. McKay was a prosecutor in Travis County, TX for 12 years

Presenters:

 Amalfi Parker Elder, Senior Program and Training Specialist, develops and delivers programming, consultation and training for community-based advocates and criminal legal system practitioners, working to enhance their systemic responses to intimate partner violence through Praxis’ Institutional Analysis, Blueprint for Safety and Advocacy Learning Center programs. Based in New Orleans, Ms. Parker Elder supports communities around the country in understanding, identifying, and addressing institutional inequities. Prior to joining Praxis, Ms. Parker Elder coordinated the adaptation, launch and implementation of the New Orleans Blueprint for Safety, as well as the New Orleans Blueprint’s equity assessment of the local disproportionately high arrest rate of Black women for domestic violence crimes. She first joined the gender-based violence movement as an attorney representing survivors in obtaining protective orders, divorce, and child custody.

Maren Woods, Program Director of Praxis International, oversees and delivers programming for Praxis’ Institutional Analysis and Blueprint for Safety programs. Ms. Woods’ work in the movement to end violence against women began in northern Minnesota in 2000 when she served as the coordinator of an extensive community-based analysis of the U.S. criminal justice system’s response to violence against Indigenous women. She has since volunteered as an on-call advocate for a battered women’s shelter and as a birth doula for low-income women. Ms. Woods’ has extensive experience providing expert training and guidance to rural, urban, and suburban communities to assess and improve their institutional response to violence against women in supervised visitation, child protective services, advocacy, and criminal and civil legal systems. 

1.50 credit hours have been applied for on behalf of MCLE. This training has been approved for 1.50 CJAD-FV hours. All attendees seeking LMFT, LPC, MSW, and TCOLE credit, must self-report through their own Department and/or Licensing Board.

Presenters:

Raymond “Ray” Goins started his law enforcement career in the United States Army as a Military Policeman. After working in the private sector for three years, he returned to law enforcement taking a position with the Roswell Police Department as a patrol officer. In March 1997, Ray was hired by the Norman Police Department where he held positions as Police Officer, Master Police Officer, Sergeant, Forensic Detective and Detective. Ray has coordinated the domestic violence academy and in-service training for the department and has been certified by the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) as a domestic violence instructor. He is also a former member of the Cleveland Co. Domestic Violence Task Force, Cleveland Co. Domestic Violence Coordinated Community Response Team/Sexual Assault Response Team, and former member of the Board of Directors for the Cleveland Co.Women’s Resource Center. Since retirement in July 2020, Ray has taken a position of Reserve Deputy with the Grady County Sheriff’s Office and is now a member of the Grady County Coordinated Community Response Team.

Assistant Chief Ronnie Johnson is a veteran officer with over 20 years of experience. He is currently a co-owner of Purple Badge Consulting and the assistant chief for the Lexington Police Department. Previously, he was with the Pottawatomie and Cleveland County Sheriff’s Offices, as well as the Citizen Potawatomi Nation Tribal Police Department. Ret. Captain Johnson has been certified by the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) as a domestic violence instructor and is a State of Oklahoma (CLEET) certified basic instructor. He has been a member of the Cleveland Co. Domestic Violence Task Force, Cleveland Co.Domestic Violence Coordinated Community Response Team, the Cleveland Co.Sexual Assault Response Team and the Cleveland Co.High Risk Team. He is currently a member of the Oklahoma Maternal Mortality Review Board. Ret. Captain Johnson has testified as an expert witness on Domestic Violence crimes and Domestic Violence Strangulation in both criminal and civil cases.

Tamara Hudgins is the Director of Social Services for the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma, where she manages and coordinates the tribal child and elder protection services programs, the Bureau of Indian Affairs funded welfare programs, and the Family Violence Prevention Services Program. Previously, Tamara worked at the District Attorneys Council as the Coordinated Community Response Specialist, where she assisted many counties in the state of Oklahoma in building, revising, and improving their coordinated community response teams to better address domestic and sexual violence issues. She has also served as program coordinator for a tribal domestic violence program and worked at a community mental health center as a Behavioral Health Rehabilitation Specialist. Ms. Hudgins is a Certified Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Professional for the state of Oklahoma.

Presenters:

Vernetta Cockerham is a survivor. In November 2002, Vernetta’s husband brutally murder her seventeen-year-old daughter. He continued his reign of terror by stabbing Vernetta and left her for dead, bleeding in their own home – which stood a mere 150 feet away from the local police department. Having survived, Vernetta has become a domestic violence advocate. She is the Founder of Candice’s Heart and Shelter for Social Change and is a member of SOAR (Sisters Overcoming Abusive Relationships) with the North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence, as well as a number of other statewide and national agencies. Vernetta worked to help pass North Carolina House Bill 1464, clarifying Domestic Violence Protective Orders. The Bill was passed July 31, 2009 and named “Candice’s Law,” after Vernetta’s daughter. Her story has been featured in the Oprah Magazine, ID Discovery, and Nightline.

Mark Wynn is a national trainer to police executives, patrol officers, training officers, prosecutors, judges, legislators, social service providers, healthcare professionals and victim advocates in all fifty states for over thirty years. An international lecturer at police academies in Australia, Canada, Germany, England, Northern Ireland, Russia, the Republic of Mauritius, the Republic of Georgia, the Federated States of Micronesia, Aruba, China, the Islands of the Bahamas, Brazil, Turkey, Cyprus, Singapore, the Republic of Namibia, the Republic of Ghana and the Republic of Moldova. He is a Fulbright Specialist for the Department of State and is a survivor, enabling him to teach both effectively and passionately. In short, he is devoted to ending domestic/sexual, elder and child abuse as a police officer, detective, educator, program supervisor and now consultant and advisor.

Presenter:

Scott Hampton, PsyD has been working with batterers, sex offenders, victims and children exposed to violence for over 30 years. Currently, he is the Executive Director of Ending the Violence, a Dover New Hampshire-based organization that provides educational classes to perpetrators both in the community and in the county jail. He is also the Project Coordinator of Strafford County’s Supervised Visitation Center. He is a past president of the National Supervised Visitation Network, a peer reviewer for the US Department of Justice and has been serving on New Hampshire’s Domestic Violence Fatality Review Committee since its inception in the late 1990s. Dr. Hampton is frequently called upon to provide expert witness testimony in court and writes and speaks frequently on issues related to interpersonal violence having provided over 500 trainings in North America, Asia and Europe. His 2010 book, “Tolerant oppression: How tolerance undermines our quest for equality and what we should do instead” addresses the intersection of domestic violence, sexual assault, racism and other forms of oppression.