2023 Tennessee FJC Conference Workshops
Wednesday, June 21st
9 – 9:45 AM- Keynote – Compassion Fatigue, Michelle Graff, Author of The Compassion Fatigued Organization: Restoring Compassion to Helping Professionals
Why are more and more compassionate people, many who deliberately chose a helping profession, feeling so depleted of compassion? Michelle Graff will explore the roots of compassion fatigue and share insight on how to be compassionate without feeling depleted.
9:45 – 10 AM- BREAK
10 – 10:45 AM –Welcome and Q & A
Jennifer Brinkman, Director, Office of Criminal Justice Programs (OCJP)
10:45 – 12:15 PM- Workshop- Implementing a High-Risk Intervention Panel, Becky Bullard, Senior Director of Programs, Family Safety Center – Nashville
Access HRIP Operating Manual Access Slides (PDF)
The Nashville-Davidson County High Risk Intervention Panel (HRIP) is a multi-disciplinary team that works to identify high-risk domestic violence cases and create individualized intervention plans that incorporate the entire response system to increase victim safety and hold offenders accountable.
This session will discuss the formation, process, and operation of the HRIP, and how to form one in your community. Speakers will include multidisciplinary partners from the FJC, Shelter, DA’s office, and more. We encourage the audience to ask questions!
12:15 – 1 PM – LUNCH
1 – 2:30 PM- Breakout Session A – Serving Victims at the Margins, Karyn Johnson, Survivor VOICES Committee, Nashville
Our agencies strive to ensure their responses to domestic violence reflect the needs and experiences of all survivors in the community. However, systems often fall short of embracing the diversity of our communities. Karyn, a Survivor and celebrated Speaker will discuss the response to marginalized and underserved victims, particularly black victims. She will bring voice and compassion to the complex conversations on racial justice that have been on the forefront of so much of our work over recent years but which have such deep roots in our systems. She will also highlight goals and hopes for growth in the interpersonal violence movement.
1 – 2:30 PM- Breakout Session B – The FJC Model: A Roadmap to Safer Communities- Panel
The model seeks to alleviate some of the burdens of interpersonal violence victims by co-locating needed services and providing assistance for the multiple challenges faced by victims and their families. Instead of having to walk, drive, or take public transportation from one place to another, repeating their story over and over again, the FJC model brings services to families in one safe, convenient, and family-friendly location.
Documented and outcomes of the FJC Model include: reduced homicides; increased victim safety; increased autonomy and empowerment for victims; reduced fear and anxiety for victims and their children; reduced recantation and minimization by victims when wrapped in services and support; increased efficiency in collaborative services to victims among service providers; increased prosecution of offenders; and dramatically increased community support for services to victims and their children through the family justice center model. (Gwinn & Strack, 2006).
Hear from leaders in this movement from across Tennessee discuss the FJC model, we encourage participants to ask questions!
2:30 – 2:45 PM – BREAK
2:45 – 4:15 PM- Breakout Session C –Rebuilding Resiliency After Domestic Violence, Michelle Graff
This interactive workshop will provide helping professionals with tools for developing resilience when working with Domestic violence survivors. We will explore our brain and neurological responses to better understand what is meant by compassion fatigue and emotional and cognitive resilience. We will also practice techniques to help “restore” (feel safe and connected) and rebuild resilience for both the helping professional and their clients.
2:45 – 4:15 PM– Breakout Session D – Surviving Strangulation: The Value of Documentation to Identify Offenders & Overcome Defenses, Kelsey McKay
Access Case Study Access Worksheet Access Supplemental Article
Although dangerous and sometimes deadly, victims of strangulation frequently lack obvious signs of external injury, often leaving marks on the abuser as they fight for their life. In the legal system, practitioners commonly rely on signs of visible physical injury to determine criminal accountability. In cases involving strangulation, however, this can confuse law enforcement and misdirect investigations and prosecutions. By incorporating tools, training, and a trauma-informed response, these cases can be more effectively investigated and prosecuted; allowing victims to prioritize their safety and improve offender accountability. This workshop will describe a variety of situations where victims may use violence against their abuser as a survival technique, as a strategy to minimize the severity of abuses, or to simply save their own life. In addition, the presenter will introduce a new lens for practitioners to see behavior and injuries through the perspective of a survivor that offers better context to commonly misunderstood evidence.
4:15 – 4:30 PM – BREAK
4:30 – 5:45 PM – Optional Comprehensive Workshops (Pre-Registration Required)
- Hiring, Firing, and Retention Strategies, Diane Lance and LaToya Townsend
OR - Prosecuting Strangulation Cases, Kelsey McKay
- Although the law now recognizes the dangers associated with perpetrators who strangle communities struggle with identifying, investigating and successfully prosecuting these crimes. Challenges such as lack of injury, gaps in memory, and barriers preventing a victim from testifying often result in a poor outcome. This workshop will explore how to better document strangulation evidence and how to successfully prosecute these crimes even without a victim present. The workshop will provide tips on jury selection and tips on how to overcome claims of mutual combat and consensual “rough sex.”
Access Case Study Access Worksheet Access Supplemental Article
These comprehensive workshops are designed to be practical, solutions-based, and actionable deep-dives into particular subject matter. Participants will be encouraged to ask questions, map-out personalized strategies for their communities and organizations, and walk away with resources and ideas for implementation.
6 – 7 PM – DINNER
7:30 PM – Optional Drop-In Treats and S’mores, OFS Cabin
Wednesday, May 18th
8 – 8:45 PM – BREAKFAST
8:45 – 10:15 AM- Workshop – Maximizing Our Resources: Guided Conversations on Innovative Practices & Emerging Issues- Part 1
This workshop is crafted to encourage conversation between attendees, guests, and statewide experts on innovative projects, solutions, strategies, and best practices happening in your communities and across the state. Participants will be given the opportunity to choose from several highly-requested topics throughout this two-part session. See Table Topics Below.
10:15 – 10:30 AM – BREAK
10:30 – 12 PM- Workshop – Maximizing Our Resources: Guided Conversations on Innovative Practices & Emerging Issues- Part 2
This workshop is crafted to encourage conversation between attendees, guests, and statewide experts on innovative projects, solutions, strategies, and best practices happening in your communities and across the state. Participants will be given the opportunity to choose from several highly-requested topics throughout this two-part session.
Table Topics List:
- Community Outreach and Buy-In
- Lethality Assessment Protocol (LAP)
- Strategies for Increasing Victim Cooperation and Follow-Through in Criminal/Civil Justice
- Trauma-Informed Services
- Issues Facing Rural Communities
- Innovative Court Practices, Especially Firearms, Strangulation and Other High-Risk Response
- VOICES Survivor Advocacy Network
- HR Tricks: Hiring and Retention
- Impact of Media and Current Events on Our Work
- Sexual Assault Response Teams (SART)
- Strategies for Working with Underserved/Marginalized Groups
12-1 PM- LUNCH
1 – 2:30 PM- Breakout Session E –Multi-Disciplinary/Coordinated Community Response (CCR) Innovative Projects Roundtable
- Sexual Assault Response Teams (SART)- Patricia Wilkinson, Program Specialist, Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic & Sexual Violence
- DV Needs Assessment, CCR Task Forces, & Polyvictimization- Regina McDevitt, Executive Director, Chattanooga Hamilton County Family Justice Center
- Firearms & Strangulation Flagging- Nashville Family Safety Center
1 – 2:30 PM- Breakout Session F – Context is Key: Identifying and Responding to Stalking, Julia Holtemeyer, Stalking Prevention, Awareness, and Resource Center (SPARC)
Access PowerPoint Slides (Dropbox) Access Slides (PDF)
Stalking is a prevalent, traumatic, and often misunderstood victimization. Stalkers are often dangerous and determined offenders, and stalking is a significant risk factor for physical violence, weapon use, sexual violence, and intimate partner homicide. However, stalking is rarely responded to with the urgency it merits; it is generally not appropriately identified, charged, prosecuted, sentenced, or supervised post-conviction, compromising both victim safety and offender accountability. This session explores the dynamics of stalking, focusing on common tactics used by perpetrators, stalking’s co-occurrence with other victimizations, and the importance of looking beyond one discrete incident to fully explore any related course of conduct. By the end of the seminar, participants will be better able to:
– Identify stalking behaviors and dynamics
– Recognize the intersection of stalking with intimate partner violence and sexual violence
– Apply strategies for working with victims of stalking
2:30 – 2:45 PM – BREAK
2:45 – 4:15 PM- Breakout Session G – Stalking 2.0: The Use of Technology to Stalk, Julia Holtemeyer, Stalking Prevention, Awareness, and Resource Center (SPARC)
Access Slides (Dropbox) Access Slides (PDF)
The majority of stalkers use (or misuse) technology to monitor, watch, contact, control, threaten, sabotage, isolate, and frighten victims, as well as to damage victims’ credibility or reputation. 80% of stalking victims report being stalked with technology. 41% of undergraduate students have experienced tech-facilitated stalking. The vast majority of tech-facilitated stalking victims are pursued by people they know, most commonly by a well-known or casual acquaintance. Offenders both use tech designed for stalking and misuse tech designed for other purposes to facilitate their stalking. Technologies and tactics used by offenders are constantly evolving and may seem impossible or unrealistic, but stalking offenders are creative in the pervasive ways they terrorize victims.
This session will address common technologies utilized by stalkers, discuss evidence preservation concerns, and identify effective safety-planning strategies. By the end of this session, participants will be better able to:
– Identify common technologies misused by perpetrators
– Identify strategies to document stalking and preserve technological evidence
2:45 – 4:15 PM– Breakout Session H – Collaboration with Faith Communities, Dr. Anne Marie Hunter, Safe Havens Interfaith Partnership
Muslim Wheel Rabbinic Response Wheel Pastoral Response Wheel Religious Community Wheel Faith Community Outreach Access Slides (PDF)
Faith communities may be one of the first places that survivors of abuse turn for help, yet we don’t often have opportunities to talk about this important community resource. What are you seeing in your FJC? What are some of the ways that faith can affect survivors of abuse? How could FJCs strengthen partnerships with local faith leaders and faith communities to support survivors and to increase access to services? What roles can faith communities play in long-term efforts to end abuse? These are just some of the questions that we will address in this session as we explore how faith intersects with intimate partner violence, dating violence, and elder abuse.
4:15 – 4:30 PM – BREAK
4:30 – 5:45 PM – Optional Comprehensive Workshops (Pre-Registration Required)
Implementing a Survivor VOICES Committee, Karyn Johnson & Bre Miller, Nashville
OR
Sexual Assault Response Team Formation & Best Practices, Patricia A. Wilkinson, TN Coalition to End Domestic & Sexual Violence
These comprehensive workshops are designed to be practical, solutions-based, and actionable deep-dives into particular subject matter. Participants will be encouraged to ask questions, map-out personalized strategies for their communities and organizations, and walk away with resources and ideas for implementation.