DANGER ASSESSMENT

Dr. Jill Theresa Messing, MSW, PhD is a Professor in the School of Social Work and the Director of the Office of Gender-Based Violence at Arizona State University. Dr. Messing specializes in the development and testing of intimate partner violence risk assessments, and is particularly interested in the use of risk assessment in collaborative, innovative interventions and as a strategy for reducing intimate partner homicide. She is a Principal Investigator on the P.A.I.R. Studies, a 6-state series of case-control studies examining risk factors for intimate partner homicide funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research, the National Science Foundation, and Every town for Gun Safety. To enhance survivor access to risk assessment and intervention, Dr. Messing and her colleagues developed the technology-based myPlan intervention (www.myplanapp.org). She was a co-investigator on three NIH-funded randomized controlled trials examining the effectiveness of this safety-planning tool for women in abusive relationships and is currently adapting the intervention for Kyrgyzstan through a grant from the Sexual Violence Research Initiative and the World Bank. Dr. Messing has published over 90 articles and book chapters and is the co-editor of the 3rd edition of Assessing Dangerousness: Domestic violence offenders and child abusers.

ODARA RISK ASSESSMENT

Dr. N Zoe Hilton is professor of psychiatry in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto, a registered psychologist, and a Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association. She was the lead of the research team that developed the Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA) and author of the book, “Domestic Violence Risk Assessment, 2nd edition,” published by the American Psychological Association in 2021.

SAFETY ASSESSMENT AND RISK MANAGEMENT (SAFETY PLANNING)

Abi Ajibolade is the current Executive Director of the Redwood. She is an attorney called to the Nigerian Bar and has a Certificate of Qualification from the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, National Committee on Accreditation after completion of Law School exams as part of the Canadian requalification process. For the last 20 years, she has worked as a popular facilitator and social justice advocate. She has dedicated most of her community work to empowering young people and women. Moreover, Abi has coached, mentored and practiced anti-oppression and intersectional feminism, striving for diversity and inclusion through transformative ideas, action and accountability. Abi recently co-created a successful Safety Assessment & Risk Management (SARM) Framework that represents a major shift in focus within the violence against women sector and has delivered the SARM presentation to over 25 groups and conferences including at the Canadian Domestic Violence Conference, and the 3rd World Conference of Women’s Shelters in The Netherlands. Abi is the current board president of Ontario Association of Interval and Transitional Houses (OAITH) and sits on the board of METRAC. She is a registered psychotherapist, certified Crisis Prevention Intervention Instructor, certified Mental Health First Aid Instructor, and a licensed Mindfulness-Based Chronic Pain Management facilitator.