The UKPRP VISION Consortium is pleased to announce our 4th annual conference:
Mobilising a cross-government response to violence prevention
Tuesday 3 June, 10:00 – 16:00
The Light Auditorium, Friends House, 173-177 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BJ
Effective violence prevention requires mobilising a cross-government response. There is a role and unique contribution to be made by every government department and service. With a new government in its first year and various violence prevention strategies in development, including Safer Streets and the commitment to halving violence against women and girls, this is an opportunity to discuss what a cross-government response looks like. This conference will bring together voices from across academia; the community and voluntary sector; central and local government; health, justice and welfare services; and others to discuss how we can work together better to reduce violence.
Join us for a day of talks and discussions on how we can better mobilise a cross-government response to violence prevention.
Our Keynote Speaker is Dame Nicole Jacobs, Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales.
Sessions on the programme include new interdisciplinary research from the VISION consortium and its partners on:
- The cost of violence;
- Embedding Lived Experience in cross-government responses to violence prevention; and
- The successes and challenges working and influencing across government
Registration is required and free. This is an in person conference only. If you cannot attend but would like the slides, please contact the email listed below.
For any questions or comments, please email VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk
Professor Gene Feder, VISION Director, University of Bristol
Gene is a Professor in Primary Care at the University of Bristol, a GP, a member of Bristol Research on Gender, Health and Trauma (BRIGHT) and the director of the UKPRP VISION research consortium. His current research focus is on the epidemiology, prevention, and mitigation of violence, particularly (but not confined to) gender-based violence.
Dame Nicole Jacobs, Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales
Since her appointment to the role of Domestic Abuse Commissioner in September 2019, Nicole has begun energetically putting her 30 plus years of experience in domestic abuse policy and intervention to work, driving improvements to transform the response to domestic abuse in England and Wales. She is committed to championing victims and survivors of all ages, status, and backgrounds, and to shining a light on practises that fail them.
Chair: Dr Fiona Vera-Gray, London Metropolitan University
Fiona Vera-Gray is a professor of sexual violence and the co-director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University. She has a practice-based background, working extensively in the frontline sexual violence movement before moving into academia. Most recently she has been working on the Home Office funded project Operation Soteria, aimed at transforming the police response to rape.
Presentations from:
Janet Veitch, OBE, Chair of the Board of Directors, Women's Budget Group
Janet worked for ten years for the UK Ministers for Women, initially as Head of Gender Mainstreaming with a remit across all UK Government ministries and then as Director of the UK Women’s National Commission, advising ministers across the UK government on gender sensitive policy. She was a founder member of the UK End Violence Against Coalition and is Chair of the UK Women’s Budget Group. She is an external assessor for the National College of Policing, and has been a specialist adviser to the parliamentary select committee on women and equalities. She works as an independent expert on gender in public policy and gender budgeting with clients including, inter alia, UN Women, Rape Crisis England and Wales, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. She was awarded the OBE for services to women’s rights in 2011.
Dr Estela Capelas Barbosa, VISION research consortium and the University of Bristol
Dr Estela Capelas Barbosa is a Senior Lecturer in Health Economics specialising in (domestic and sexual) violence and trauma, based at Bristol Medical School. She works within both the Health Economics and Health Policy (HEHP) group and the Bristol Research on the Intersection of Gender, Violence, and Trauma (BRIGHT) group. Her methodological work on inequity has supported vaccine distribution frameworks, influencing WHO and UNICEF initiatives, and a global community of practice spanning 80+ countries and 3,400+ members. Currently she is a co-deputy director for the UKPRP-funded VISION Consortium, where she also leads the work with specialist support services and on data integration. She is also involved in an international collaboration between UK, Brazil, Nepal and Sri Lanka, carrying out the statistical and economic components of the evaluation of local healthcare responses to domestic violence and abuse.
Dr Natalia V Lewis, VISION research consortium and the University of Bristol
Chair: Dr Sian Oram, VISION research consortium and Kings
College London
Dr Sian Oram is Head of the King's Women's Mental Health (KWMH) at King’s College London and Director of the Violence, Abuse and Mental Health Network (VAMHN). Her research focuses on the intersections between interpersonal trauma, gender, and mental health, with a particular emphasis on survivor-centred and participatory methods. She is currently leading work on coercive control and mental wellbeing and on improving outcome measurement in interventions supporting survivors. As Lived Experience Strategic Lead for VISION she is working to embed meaningful survivor involvement across the consortium. She has published widely on domestic and sexual violence, including leading the Lancet Psychiatry Commission on Intimate Partner Violence and Mental Health.
The launch of the VISION Lived Experience animation:
Alicia Stillman, Violence, Abuse & Mental Health Network
Alicia M. Stillman has over 30 years of qualitative research experience across diverse fields, including documentary filmmaking, editorial work, and crisis management. Her lived experience enriches her understanding of violence and its impacts, enabling her to advocate for marginalized and underrepresented populations effectively. Alicia is deeply motivated by the opportunity to improve outcomes for survivors and inform future prevention strategies. She is currently working on a book about recovery after disaster.
Dr Elizabeth Cook, VISION research consortium and City St George's University of London
Dr. Elizabeth Cook is a Senior Lecturer in the Violence and Society Centre, City, University of London. As a sociologist and criminologist, her principal areas of research expertise include homicide, family, and gender and their intersections with harms to society, specifically: analysing pathways between gender, inequality, and homicide; improving statutory fatality review systems; and accounting for the impact of family advocacy and activism on crime, justice and punishment. Her expertise forms part of the VISION research consortium, of which, she is a Co-Investigator.
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A panel of LE experts answering audience questions:
Jen Douglas, SafeLives Scotland
Jen Douglas has worked in the Scottish Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) sector for the past 18 years, in various roles including; sexual health & relationships education, frontline recovery and crisis intervention, and training and strategic development. She has been with SafeLives since 2018 and is currently responsible for all Authentic Voice and lived experience work across the Scottish portfolio, including working alongside the Scottish Authentic Voice Panel. She leads on Authentic Voice: Embedding Lived Experience, a Scottish Government and Lottery funded project that seeks to amplify the voice of survivors and help ensure that local authorities and other community planning organisations have the knowledge, confidence, and tools they need to embed survivor voice into local system and service design processes in a robust, trauma informed and meaningful way.
Dr Danny Taggart, University of Essex
Dr Daniel Taggart is a reader in clinical psychology at the University of Essex, and a chartered psychologist. Danny worked at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse from 2019-2022 where he was the principal psychologist and clinical lead for the Truth Project. Danny has worked as a clinical consultant and trainer for the Northern Irish Historical Institutional Abuse Redress Board, the Scottish Redress Scheme, and the Jersey Care Inquiry Citizens Panel. His current research is focused on survivor participation in non-recent institutional abuse inquiries, the ways that childhood trauma impacts engagement with public services, and what value survivor testimony has in both facilitating recovery from trauma and creating change in institutional practices. Danny has recently consulted on the involvement of people with lived experience to a range of public bodies including; the Northern Ireland Mother and Baby, Magdalene Laundry and Workhouse Truth Recovery Panel, the Historical Institutional Abuse Victims Commissioner of Northern Ireland, the Cabinet Office Inquiry team and the Northern Ireland Executive Truth Recovery Programme.
Lisa Ward, Lisa Ward Consulting
Lisa Ward is a violence and abuse lived experience consultant. She works across academia, local and national government, and with voluntary sector organisations to help them review, develop and deliver work which amplifies the voices of those with lived experience. She strives to ensure it’s an empowering experience for those involved, and that the work leads to meaningful engagement. Lisa currently leads the Violence Abuse & Mental Health Network (VAMHN) Lived Experience Advisory Group, a partner on the vision project. Prior to this Lisa worked as a CEO of a Rape Crisis Centre. In her spare time Lisa is undertaking a PhD in Child perpetrated child sexual abuse.
Isaac Ouro-Gnao, Traumascapes
Isaac Ouro-Gnao is a Togolese-British multidisciplinary artist, somatic trauma therapist, mental health scholar-activist, and freelance journalist. He is an artist and lived experience researcher at Traumascapes, a survivor-led organisation addressing trauma through art science. Rooted in magical realism, embodied storytelling, and collaborative practice, his creative and academic work explores how art, film, dance, and somatics can create spaces for individual and collective healing.
Chair: Dr Hannah Manzur, VISION research consortium and City St George's University of London
Hannah Manzur joined City St George’s, University of London, as a Ph.D. student with the Violence and Society Centre in 2020. She recently received her doctorate for exploring the relationship between gender, violence and Brexit, focusing on the impact of Brexit on rates of and responses to violence against women and girls in the UK. Her research interests cover gendered violence, feminist policy making, and the impact of Brexit on gender equality.
Presentations from:
Ciara Bergman, Rape Crisis England and Wales
Ciara Bergman has worked in the Violence Against Women and Girls sector for over 20 years, both as a frontline practitioner and strategic leader, and has extensive experience of service innovation, systems change and influencing government policy in relation to domestic and sexual violence and abuse. She is the current Chief Executive Officer of Rape Crisis England & Wales – the national membership and campaigns body for a network of 36 independent Rape Crisis centres. She has written about – and commented on – government policy extensively in that role since her start, including centring the needs and voices of survivors in service provision and commissioning, the economic case for investing in Rape Crisis centres, and sexual violence and abuse as a cause and consequence of intersecting inequalities faced by women and girls.
Caroline Bernard, Respect
Caroline Bernard joined Respect in March 2022, with responsibility for policy, public affairs and communications. Caroline was previously Head of Policy and Communications at Homeless Link, the second-tier body for the homelessness sector, for five years. Caroline brings 19 years’ experience leading policy and communications and worked in the private and public sectors before finding her true home in the charity sector. Her interests are social justice, equality and diversity, issues facing women, particularly those from minority ethnic groups, and the changing world of work.
Joanna Camadoo-Rothwell, SafeLives
Joanna is Head of Policy and Public Affairs at SafeLives, a UK wide domestic abuse charity working to end domestic abuse for everyone, for good. She has been with the charity for three years and leads on influencing Government departments to take a whole family, whole system approach to addressing domestic abuse. Joanna has 15 years’ experience in public affairs, focused predominantly on public health influencing. She was also a Councillor and Cabinet Member for Community Safety, with responsibility for domestic abuse policy, in a London borough for two terms.
Meena Kumari, H.O.P.E. Training
Meena founded H.O.P.E Training and Consultancy LTD and H.O.P.E Training & Leadership C.I.C., specializing in gender-based violence prevention. With nearly 20 years in VAWG services, using an intersectional approach she's worked with victims and perpetrators of domestic and sexual abuse and violence since 2005. She delivers the CARA intervention program and Adult Recovery toolkit for domestic abuse survivors, particularly supporting Black and racialized communities. In 2025 alongside a partnership approach Meena is leading on interventions for those using harmful behaviours from south Asian communities- the CHAB programme is a feasibility trail till April 2026. Meena leads the #Beyond100Leaders program tackling institutional racism in VAWG services and led AI and VAWG discussions alongside academics.
Professor Gene Feder