Guest Host Biographies
OVC Web Forum Guest Host sessions offer an impressive roster of experts discussing best practices for a wide variety of victim issues. You can read about the guest hosts here. For more information, questions, or comments about the sessions, send an e-mail to OVCproviderforum@ncjrs.gov.
To view a biography, click on the guest host's name below. To learn more about previous years’ guest hosts, visit the Guest Host Biographies Archive.
Current Guest Hosts
 Bonnie Brandl
06/18/2008 online discussion host
Topic: Assisting Victims of Domestic Abuse in Later Life
Bonnie Brandl, M.S.W., is Director of the National Clearinghouse on Abuse in Later Life (NCALL). Established in 1999 by the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence, NCALL's mission is to eliminate abuse in later life by challenging beliefs, policies, practices, and systems that tolerate and perpetuate abuse, and to improve safety, services, and support for victims through advocacy and education. In her role as Director, Ms. Brandl serves as a liaison for national elder abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault, and aging networks; and oversees and provides national technical assistance, training, program development, and support.
Ms. Brandl has worked with battered women and their children for more than 20 years, and has presented lectures on these topics at numerous national, regional, statewide, and local conferences. She has written several articles, manuals, and curricula on elder and domestic abuse in later life, including “Assessing for Abuse in Later Life” and Elder Abuse Detection and Intervention: A Collaborative Approach. She has a master’s degree in social work from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
 Jane Raymond
06/18/2008 online discussion host
Topic: Assisting Victims of Domestic Abuse in Later Life
Jane Raymond, M.S., is the Advocacy and Protection Systems Developer for the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services. For more than two decades, she has helped to further develop protective services and network responses to adults at risk of domestic and elder abuse. Ms Raymond has spoken nationally on issues of domestic violence in later life and has written several papers and articles on the subject, including “Landmark Reforms Signed into Law: Guardianship and Adult Protective Services,” “Elder Abuse, Including Domestic Violence in Later Life,” and “Abuse in Later Life: Name It! Claim It!” She also served as editor of Creating Safer Communities for Older Adults and Companion Animals, a manual developed by The Humane Society of the United States. Ms. Raymond earned her master’s degree in corrections from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is an active member of the National Adult Protective Services Association.
Past Guest Hosts
Duane Bowers
05/27/2008 online discussion host
Topic: Assisting Family Members of Missing Children
Duane T. Bowers, LPC, is a therapist, educator, and author of Guiding Your Family Through Loss and Grief and A Child Is Missing: Providing Support for Families of Missing Children. He provides support to families of abducted, missing, exploited, and murdered children through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, where he serves as a training consultant and which deploys him to provide crisis intervention with Team Adam at Amber Alert sites. He also is a consultant and trainer for Team HOPE, a support network for parents of missing children.
As a therapist, Mr. Bowers specializes in working with survivors of traumatic death and suicide in private practice. As an educator, he teaches seminars on dying, death, and grief; posttraumatic stress disorder; and traumatic loss. He also provides clinical supervision and training to staff and volunteers of various organizations that deal with trauma and loss. Mr. Bowers volunteers with the Red Cross as a disaster mental health technician, and with the Capital Area Crisis Response Team as a therapist and trainer.
Mr. Bowers previously served as the Director of Training and Education for the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing, Senior Director of Emergency and International Services for the National Capital Chapter of the American Red Cross, and as an adjunct professor of counseling at Trinity College in Washington, D.C. He has lectured classes at the University of Maryland, Howard University, the University of the District of Columbia, Johns Hopkins University, George Washington University, and Gallaudet University.
Back to Top
Mitru Ciarlante
02/27/2008 online discussion host
Topic: Responding to Teen Victims of Dating Violence
Mitru Ciarlante is Director of the National Center for Victims of Crime's Teen Victim Initiative. She works to advance rights and services for young victims and survivors of crime, promotes youth inclusion in social change and advocacy efforts, and supports professionals who work with youth victims. As a victim counselor and advocate, she started a comprehensive children's advocacy program; founded the Children's Advocates' Task Force of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence (PCADV); and created the Students Together for Outreach and Prevention of Abuse peer education program.
Ms. Ciarlante is the National Chair of the Research and Best Practice Committee of the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) and the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape (PCAR) Vision of Hope campaign to end sexual violence against children. She also founded Advocacy, Consultation, and Training for Change, a consultation firm through which she has supported the development of multiple programs, including Rallying Youth Organizers Together Against Rape, a PCAR statewide youth activist network. View this Guest Host's photograph.
Back to Top
Kerry Cosgrove
02/13/2008 online discussion host
Topic: Victim Services in Urban High Crime Neighborhoods
Kerry Cosgrove, a Licensed Professional Counselor, is Supervisor of the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department's Victim Services Unit (VSU). The VSU was established in 1999 to aid victims and survivors of crime by offering emotional support, practical aid, and advocacy. In 2007, the VSU provided criminal justice support, victims' rights information, and crisis intervention services to 7,053 victims of crime.
In 2002, OVC selected Kansas City, Kansas, as one of six pilot sites for the Urban High Crime Neighborhood Initiative (UHCNI). This initiative supports the creation of collaborative models for grassroots, community service, and victim assistance organizations in high-crime urban settings to work together to improve services to crime victims in their own neighborhoods. Participating in the initiative allowed the VSU to identify gaps in services and develop best practices for meeting the needs of traditionally underserved populations of crime victims within the northeast quadrant of Kansas City, Kansas. View this Guest Host's photograph.
Back to Top
Michelle Garcia
01/09/2008 online discussion host
Topic: Assisting Victims of Intimate Partner Stalking
01/24/07 online discussion host
Topic: Serving Victims of Stalking
Michelle Garcia is Director of the Stalking Resource Center at the National Center for Victims of Crime (NCVC). Prior to joining NCVC, Ms. Garcia was a program specialist at the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. She has more than 15 years of experience working with victims of sexual assault and domestic violence and advocating for victims' rights on the local, state, and national levels.
Formerly, Ms. Garcia was President of the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault and President of the National Coalition Against Sexual Assault. She has trained others in the field nationally on various specialized victim issues, including stalking, sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and dismantling oppression. Ms. Garcia received her master's degree in public policy from the University of Chicago. View this Guest Host's photograph.
Back to Top
Melissa Hook
03/12/2008 online discussion host
Topic: Ethical Practices in Victim Services
Melissa Hook is Executive Director of the District of Columbia Office of Victim Services, and former Executive Director of the Victims' Assistance Legal Organization. She serves on the National Advisory Committee for Violence Against Women, where she chairs the Subcommittee on Teen Dating Violence, and on the Attorney General's Commission on Victims of Crime. She is the author of Ethics in Victim Services, designed to help victim assistance professionals identify, analyze, and resolve the many ethical dilemmas they face in their daily work; and has served as a consulting editor to the Crime Victims Report, a journal for criminal justice professionals, since 1999.
Ms. Hook is lead consultant for the Filmmakers' Forum, a resource created by filmmakers and victim advocates to facilitate the discussion of legal and ethical issues that arise from the use of real crime stories in film. She has written about victim-related topics for the Office for Victims of Crime, the National Center for Victims of Crime, the American Probation and Parole Association, and the American Prosecutors Research Institute. She has been involved with several national campaigns that addressed public policy implementation, adult and juvenile reentry, and restorative justice issues. View this Guest Host's photograph.
Back to Top
Penelope Hughes
04/16/2008 online discussion host
Topic: Using Online Communications to Assist Crime Victims
Penelope Hughes is Vice President of Online Services at the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), where she supervised the initial development and implementation of the National Sexual Assault Online Hotline—a free, confidential, secure service that provides immediate assistance over the RAINN Web site. Specifically, the hotline provides crisis intervention and support services to victims of sexual assault; referrals to victim assistance resources; explanations of the prosecution process, the criminal justice system, and what to expect when reporting a crime to the police; and information for family and friends of victims.
Ms. Hughes previously served as a trained rape crisis hotline volunteer at the Dekalb County Rape Crisis Center in Decatur, Georgia, for more than 7 years and coordinated fair housing investigations at the Georgia Commission on Equal Opportunity. She has also worked as legal counsel for the startup technology company XBond. Ms. Hughes has a juris doctorate from the Georgia State University College of Law and a bachelor of arts degree from Davidson College in North Carolina.
Back to Top
Greg Luft
01/30/2008 online discussion host
Topic: Cultivating Relationships Between Victim Service Providers and the Media
Greg Luft is a Professor and Chair of Colorado State University's Department of Journalism and Technical Communication. Mr. Luft is also an independent producer of documentaries and educational programs with more than 10 years' experience reporting on the justice system. He produced and directed the OVC -funded video, The News Media's Coverage of Crime and Victimization, and has produced programs in conjunction with the Victims' Assistance Legal Organization and the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center at the Medical University of South Carolina. His work examines the relationship between reporters, crime victims, and law enforcement, and aims to educate the public about victim issues and the impact of the media on crime victims and criminal justice.
Mr. Luft's programs are used extensively in journalism courses at the university level and as training materials for law enforcement officers and victim service providers. He has earned numerous awards for reporting, documentary production, instructional television, and commercial production. His professional experience includes examining reporters' reactions as they deal with victims of crime and news coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. View this Guest Host's photograph.
Back to Top
Joan Meunier-Sham
04/23/2008 online discussion host
Topic: Implementing Pediatric Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Programs
Joan Meunier-Sham, R.N., M.S., is Associate Director of the Massachusetts Pediatric Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) Program, where she coordinates Pediatric SANE services for six Massachusetts Children's Advocacy Centers, and collaborates with the Massachusetts Children's Alliance to increase capacity for onsite medical exams at these centers. In 2003, as the Massachusetts Pediatric SANE Training Coordinator, Ms. Meunier-Sham consulted with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to develop the Massachusetts Pediatric SANE Protocols, and the Massachusetts Pediatric Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit. She also coordinated the development of the Pediatric SANE Curriculum, and in 2004, facilitated the first pediatric SANE training in Massachusetts. Ms. Meunier-Sham has since presented the Massachusetts Pediatric SANE Program and the evidence collection kit to groups nationally and internationally.
Ms. Meunier-Sham previously served as chair of the Pediatric SANE Subcommittee of the Child and Adolescent Committee of the Governor's Commission on Sexual and Domestic Violence, and has 10 years of experience as a pediatric clinical nurse specialist in the emergency department of Boston Medical Center. During her tenure at the Boston Medical Center, she worked with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to develop a Pediatric Sexual Assault Program through her membership on the Pediatric SANE Advisory Group. She received her bachelor of science degree from Southeastern Massachusetts University in 1979 and her master of science in parent/child nursing from Boston University in 1985. View this Guest Host's photograph.
Back to Top
Linda Miller
02/13/2008 online discussion host
Topic: Victim Services in Urban High Crime Neighborhoods
Linda Miller is Executive Director and Founder of Civil Society, a nonprofit organization based in St. Paul, Minnesota, which empowers disadvantaged communities to become safe and secure and provides comprehensive services to victims of human trafficking and exploitation. She previously served as project director of the St. Paul, Minnesota pilot site of the Urban High Crime Neighborhood Initiative (UHCNI), which supports the creation of collaborative models for grassroots, community service, and victim assistance organizations in high-crime urban settings to work together to improve services to crime victims in their own neighborhoods. She has more than 30 years of experience as an attorney dealing with underserved and frequently victimized populations, specializing in civil rights and discrimination law.
In 2001, Ms. Miller was appointed by the Commissioner of Public Safety to the Minnesota Victim and Witness Advisory Council, and in 2002 she received a certificate of appreciation from the U.S. Department of Justice after developing best practices for reaching out to immigrant crime victims. She previously served as executive board co-chair of Frogtown Weed and Seed, and co-chair of the Thomas/Dale Block Club Crime Committee; and was a member of the Pacific Americans-Asian Pacific Policy Task Force. Ms. Miller is the author of “Victimization of the Acculturating Immigrant,” which was published in the International Journal of Victimology in 2007, and she speaks internationally on the topic of providing services to victims of human trafficking. View this Guest Host's photograph.
Back to Top
Abby Potash
05/27/2008 online discussion host
Topic: Assisting Family Members of Missing Children
Abby Potash is the Program Manager of Team HOPE (Help Offering Parents Empowerment), a support network for families with missing children that offers counsel, resources, and emotional support from trained volunteers who have had or still have a missing child. Ms. Potash began volunteering for Team HOPE in 1998 following the recovery of her son, who was kidnapped by his noncustodial father in 1997. As Program Manager, she has developed training curricula, managed and trained Team Hope coordinators and more than 250 volunteers, and personally assisted thousands of families in crisis.
Ms. Potash became a spokesperson for missing children in the wake of her son’s disappearance. She has appeared on various TV programs and has spoken at numerous conferences and advocacy events. Ms. Potash has presented therapeutic approaches for helping families with missing children to mental health professionals, and has been involved in reunifications of abducted children with their families. She is also a consultant with Fox Valley Technical College, where she presents missing children issues to law enforcement and prosecutors.
Back to Top
Barri Rosenbluth
02/27/2008 online discussion host
Topic: Responding to Teen Victims of Dating Violence
Barri Rosenbluth is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and School-Based Services Director of SafePlace in Austin, Texas. In this capacity, she directs SafePlace's Expect Respect Program, a dating violence prevention program through which she trains and consults with school personnel on dating violence, sexual harassment, and bullying. Expect Respect is a comprehensive program that provides counseling, support groups, and educational programs for youth and adults. The program was designated as a promising practice by the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence and featured in Because Things Happen Every Day, an educational video produced by the National Center for Victims of Crime.
Ms. Rosenbluth helped the Austin Independent School District establish the first school policies in Texas regarding dating violence, which later served as a model for statewide legislation. She also contributed to the development of Choose Respect, a national primary prevention initiative created by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to promote safe and healthy dating relationships among youth. View this Guest Host's photograph.
Back to Top
Anne Seymour
01/30/2008 online discussion host
Topic: Cultivating Relationships Between Victim Service Providers and the Media
2/08/06 online discussion host
Topic: NCVRW Awareness Campaign
Anne Seymour is Cofounder and Senior Advisor of Justice Solutions, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C., that specializes in criminal and juvenile justice, crime victims' rights and services, and community safety. She has nearly 25 years of experience as a national and international advocate for crime victims' rights. Ms. Seymour has authored or contributed to more than 30 OVC manuals and texts including 20 National Crime Victims' Rights Week Resource Guides and the National Victim Assistance Academy training video The News Media's Coverage of Crime and Victimization, and has written several publications for nonprofit victim service organizations.
Ms. Seymour served as project manager for OVC's Oral History Project and National Public Awareness Campaign Project. She is a founding member of the National Victim Assistance Academy, senior consultant to the National Violence Against Women Prevention Research Center, and principal consultant to the Center for Sex Offender Management. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Victims' Constitutional Amendment Network and the Board of Directors of the American Probation and Parole Association Victim Issues Committee, as well as secretary/treasurer of the International Association of Reentry. She also is on the faculty of the National Judicial College and the National College of District Attorneys.
Ms. Seymour has received numerous honors for her work, including the 2007 Ed Stout Memorial Award for Outstanding Victim Advocacy from the U.S. Congressional Victims' Rights Caucus, and the1992 Outstanding Service to Crime Victims Award from President Bush. View this Guest Host's photograph.
Back to Top
Victor Vieth
03/26/2008 online discussion host
Topic: Preparing Victim Service Providers and Children for Court
Victor Vieth is the Director of the National Child Protection Training Center at Winona State University, which provides training and technical assistance on dependency, neglect, and termination of parental rights in child abuse cases, and which merged with the National Association to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children (NAPSAC) in 2007. Previously, Mr. Vieth was the Director of Child Abuse Programs at the National District Attorneys Association. He is also the author of “Unto the Third Generation: A Call to End Child Abuse in the United States Within 120 Years,” which was published in the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma in 2005, as well as numerous articles related to the investigation, prosecution, and prevention of child abuse and neglect. He has trained professionals from all 50 states, 2 U.S. territories, and 17 countries on these topics.
In 1998, Mr. Vieth launched “Finding Words: Interviewing Children and Preparing for Court,” a course he designed to teach the CornerHouse Interagency Child Abuse Evaluation and Training Center's RATAC protocol ( rapport, anatomy identification, touch inquiry, abuse scenario, and closure). The overwhelming response to the course led to the creation of “Half-A-Nation by 2010,” an effort to establish Finding Words programs in half the U.S. states by 2010. As of December 2007, courses have been established in 19 states, under the guidance of CornerHouse and the National District Attorneys Association. A newsletter by the same name is also published for the program.
Mr. Vieth has received distinguished alumnus awards from Minnesota's Hamline University School of Law in Saint Paul and Winona State University in Winona, and has been named one of “21 Young Lawyers Leading Us Into the 21 st Century” by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. He has also been listed on the American Bar Association's President's Honor Roll for its Young Lawyers Division. View this Guest Host's photograph.
Back to Top
Timothy Woods
05/14/2008 online discussion host
Topic: Responding to Victims of Crime
Timothy Woods is Director of the Research, Development, and Grants Division at the National Sheriffs' Association (NSA) in Alexandria, Virginia. He also is Project Director for all the association’s grants from the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), including the Victim Services in Rural Law Enforcement demonstration project, in partnership with Justice Solutions, Inc. NSA, which has provided law enforcement training since 1940 and currently has more than 20,000 members, represents the 3,087 sheriffs in the United States and other public safety professionals. Mr. Woods is the author of First Response to Victims of Crime 2001, an NSA handbook for law enforcement officers that OVC’s Director, John Gillis, once recognized as the agency’s “most requested publication.” Mr. Woods also wrote the OVC-funded First Response to Victims of Crime Who Have a Disability handbook and the recently released First Response to Victims of Crime guidebook, for which a companion roll-call video was produced by Video/Action.
Mr. Woods earned bachelor’s degrees in sociology, political science, history, and Germanic languages and literature from Washington University, and a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Virginia. He earned his juris doctorate from the St. Louis University School of Law, and has a master of laws degree in international law from the Georgetown University Law Center. View this Guest Host's photograph.
Back to Top
Lucia Zuniga
04/23/2008 online discussion host
Topic: Implementing Pediatric Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Programs
Lucia Zuniga, R.N., S.A.N.E., is Director of the Massachusetts' Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) Program and in this capacity she oversees the program's statewide operations, protocols, trainings, certifications, and credentialing standards, with the support of a dedicated staff. Ms. Zuniga is the Cochair of the SANE Council of the International Association of Forensic Nurses and the Cochair of the Health Care Working Group of the Governor's Commission on Sexual and Domestic Violence. As an expert in caring for victims of sexual assault, she has trained countless nurses, physicians, social workers, police officers, district attorneys, rape crisis center staff, judges, and others in the holistic approach to caring for victims after the trauma of sexual assault and how best to collect and preserve the forensic evidence of such attacks.
Ms. Zuniga has more than 18 years of emergency nursing experience and was one of the first nurses in Massachusetts to be certified as a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE). In fact, it was while working in the emergency department that she developed her special interest in caring for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. She also is a founding board member of the Children's Alliance in Massachusetts, a member of the Massachusetts Emergency Contraception Network, a legislative committee member of the Governor's Commission on Sexual and Domestic Violence, and Chair of the SANE and Pediatric SANE Advisory Board. In addition, Ms. Zuniga has worked with other pediatric advisors toward the development of a standardized Pediatric Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit with a “Do No Harm” protocol. She is currently overseeing pediatric SANE operations in addition to adult and adolescent services.
Ms. Zuniga graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso in 1987. View this Guest Host's photograph.
Back to Top
| 
