Workshops C (10:45 AM - 12:15 PM)
Athena F
Safety Planning for Everyone: Basic Tips to Safety Planning with Survivors for the Non-Advocate
Alexis Champion
Leaving an abusive relationship is often the most dangerous time for a victim of domestic violence, and victims will go to
multiple people in their support network for help before ever seeking out assistance from a trained domestic violence
advocate. While safety planning with a trained advocate is an essential part of the advocacy process and referrals to an
advocate should be made whenever possible, anyone who is offering support to a victim can learn the basics of safety
planning skills. The more we all know about good safety planning, the better we can help to increase safety for victims. This
workshop will provide a basic overview for people who are not domestic violence advocates on how to safety plan with
victims who are either in an abusive situation or who are thinking about or in the process of leaving.
Athena G/H
Masculinity and Violence Perpetration: What Do We Know?
Wojciech Kaczkowski, Dominic Parrott, Dennis Reidy and Monica Swahn
Cultural norms that dictate how boys and men are supposed to look, behave, experience, and express emotions are
complex and malleable across time and contexts. Public discourse about the adverse outcomes versus the laudable
attributes of masculinity is by no means new; however, this issue now seems much more in the forefront of the public
zeitgeist, perhaps due to the recent events in politics and popular culture, such as the emergence of the Me Too movement
or the backlash towards the new Gillette ad campaign. The goal of this workshop is to provide the audience with a
research-informed overview of the relationship between masculinity and violence perpetration and the way it affects boys
and men, women, and the broader society. Topics covered will include 1) how masculinity is defined and measured, 2) how
masculinity is communicated and taught to boys, 3) the direct and indirect processes through which conforming to
masculine norms leads to violent outcomes, and 4) how focusing on norms pertaining to masculinity can be utilized to
prevent violence.
Athena I/J
Identifying, Understanding, Protecting, and Servicing Sex Trafficking Victims
Heather Stockdale and Camila Zolfaghari
This workshop will train participants of all disciplines to identify, protect and serve sex trafficking victims from a legal and
trauma informed service provider perspective. Participants will receive in-depth information about what sex trafficking looks
like in Georgia, and how to respond to it from both a law enforcement and legal system perspective, and a service provider
perspective. We will discuss the special challenges that law enforcement and prosecutors face when working these cases,
alongside the special challenges service providers face. We will discuss what it means to be at high risk to become a
trafficking victim and what can be done to prevent human trafficking. We will provide resource information and participants
will leave the training knowing what to do when they come across a suspected human trafficking victim.
Olympia 2
Georgia’s Child Abuse Registry – Protecting Survivors from the Risks of the Registry
Megan Pulsts and Alexandra Eichenbaum
Georgia Legal Services’ attorneys are seeing more cases where victims of domestic violence are being placed on the Child
Abuse Registry. These victims are accused of failing to protect their children and in some circumstances, their abusers are
not placed on the registry. The Child Abuse Registry is currently set up so that the parent is placed on the registry and then
given a 10 day notice that they can appeal to be removed. While the timeline was recently expanded to 30 days, the parent
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