About Us
Mission | History
| Project Information | Staff
| Contact Information
The mission of the Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse (MINCAVA) is
to support research, education, and access to violence related
resources.
For more information about the mission and focus of MINCAVA, consider
reviewing some of these materials:
Under the direction of Jeffrey
L. Edleson, Ph.D., the Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse was
established in 1994 by the Minnesota State Legislature with a charge "to
improve the quality of higher education related to violence." During its first
years, the Center's initial and only project was the Violence Education
Project. The project included a discipline-specific needs assessment about
higher education, a web- based library of educational resources, a grant
program to fund the development of new violence-related higher education
curricula, higher education conferences, and worked to change continuing
education and licensing requirements.
MINCAVA is considered a leader in innovative violence-related education,
research and Internet publishing and now coordinates four nationally and
internationally renowned projects.
The MINCAVA Electronic Clearinghouse provides an
extensive pool of up-to-date educational resources about all types of
violence, including higher education syllabi, published research, funding
sources, upcoming training events, individuals or organizations which serve
as resources, and searchable databases with over 1000 training manuals,
videos and other education resources
Violence Against Women Online
Resources is a cooperative project between the Center and the United
States Department of Justice, Office of Justice
Programs, Office on Violence
Against Women . This site provides state-of-the art resource materials
about effective interventions, services, and coordinated community responses
to violence against women for criminal justice professionals, state
coalitions, tribal coalitions and victim advocacy groups .
The Link Project is an internationally
recognized research, demonstration and information dissemination project .
This project examines the experiences of families in which both children and
their mothers have been maltreated. The project reports systematically
collected information on children and domestic violence and builds
collaborative relationships between child protection, domestic violence and
court services.
As an extension of this research, MINCAVA also coordinates the
technical assistance and information dissemination for
the Minnesota Rural Project for Women and Child
Safety.
VAWnet (Applied Research Forum)
publishes online research summaries, discussions, and other resources for
domestic violence and sexual assault coalition staff members, as well as
members of other allied national organizations throughout the United
States
Jeffrey Edleson, PhD - Director
Jeffrey L. Edleson is a Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Minnesota and Director of the Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse. He has published over 80 articles and six books on domestic violence, groupwork, and program evaluation. Dr. Edleson has conducted intervention research at the Domestic Abuse Project in Minneapolis for over 16 years. He has provided technical assistance to domestic violence programs and research projects across North America as well as in several other countries including Germany, Australia, Israel, Korea, and Singapore.
Kevin Bullock, Internet Systems Designer and Administrator
Kevin Bullock develops and maintains MINCAVA's Web resources (
Violence Against Women Online Resources and the
MINCAVA Electronic Clearinghouse). He joined
MINCAVA after completing his Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science at
Minnesota State University, Mankato in 2004. Before graduating, Kevin worked for the
MSU Women's Center as a Web developer, making their Web site easier to use and more accessible for people with disabilities. He enjoys using his technical skills to aid in the struggle against violence. Kevin uses his free time to play guitar, read, and engage in action for social justice.
Jennifer Witt, MSW - Associate Director
Jennifer Witt has worked at MINCAVA for the past four years and has
overseen development of applied research documents for the
National
Online Resource Center on Violence Against Women (VAWnet) and also
coordinated the development of the OVW Technical Assistance Provider
Event Calendar and Directory. She has a Masters of Social Work from the
University of Minnesota and has a Bachelors of
Science in sociology from the
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. In her past professional experience, Jennifer
has led a Coordinated Community Response (CCR) to Sexual Assault and
Domestic Violence and has worked on various community organizing and
public education projects within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender (LGBT) community, as well as in the violence against women
movement.
Narae Shin, MA - Research Assistant
Narae Shin is working on the Child Exposure to Domestic Violence research project within the
School of Social Work at the University of Minnesota. Narae is first-year doctoral student who holds a MA in Social Welfare from
Seoul National University. In her past professional experience, Narae worked at The Family Violence and Sexual Assault Center in Gyunggy-do, Korea as counselor of the treatment program for court-mandated domestic violence offenders and counselor of the treatment program for court-mandated juvenile sexual offenders.
Katy Armendariz, Research Assistant
Katy is a second year MSW student in the
School of Social Work program at the
University of Minnesota. She grew up in
Minneapolis and graduated with a B.A. in Sociology and a minor in Psychology from
Northern Illinois
University , and she currently works as a case worker in Post Adoption for
Children's Home
Society & Family Services , the agency from which she was adopted. In this work, Katy is the Outreach Worker, as she faciltates reunions between adopted persons and birthparents and serves as the intermediary. She also works part time at a group home company and enjoys assisting individuals with developmental disabilities and mental health issues. Additionally, she is doing her field placement with Ramsey County Child Protection and is actively working to understand its intracacies. At MINCAVA, Katy maintains the Electronic Clearinghouse, keeping it up to date with new information, events, job postings, and research. Last year she assisted Jeff Edleson with his Children's Exposure to Domestic Violence Project and co-authored the resulting article. Katy's concentration is in
child welfare and hopes to work in the child welfare system upon
graduation.
Sheetal Rana, Research Assistant
![]()
Sheetal Rana has a Master’s degree in Sociology from Tribhuvan
University, Nepal, and an undergraduate degree in Sociology from
Delhi University, India. She has been involved in social development
work for the past six years. Sheetal’s professional experience
ranges from micro-level field work to macro-level policy related
work. While in Nepal, she worked on numerous field research projects
and assisted in program design and evaluation of community based
development projects. Sheetal’s involvement in international social
development began at the World Bank, where she has been a consultant
for the last five years, working on various social issues. She
worked extensively on analytical reports that assessed the context
of community driven development and critical issues of scaling of
community driven development in Central Asia. Sheetal was a team
member for gender review in Tajikistan and a member of the team that
prepared guidelines for gender responsive social analysis. She was a
part of the team that developed thematic social analysis guidelines
for projects on natural resource management, community development,
HIV/AIDS, and transport. She was involved in analytical and research
work that examined social issues such as social capital, inequality
and exclusion of poor, women, youth, disabled and elderly groups
from access to quality services. Sheetal’s long-term professional
goal is to use her academic and work experience to contribute to
international development. Her research interest lies in social
policies that promote youth development. She intends to focus on
policies that target youth, particularly girls and youth from poor
and conflict-affected countries, to ensure young people’s access to
quality education and health services, to increase youth
employability, and promote youth civic participation. Her interest
is in understanding the processes that promote and sustain equity on
micro-level and in applying this knowledge to develop social
policies that provide youth with equitable access to resources and
help them break out of the poverty cycle. Sheetal is an incoming
Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota School of Social Work.
Sheetal will be working 10 hours a week on the VAWnet Applied
Research project.
Kunume Onwueme, Research Assistant
![]()
Kunume is a second year M.S.W. student at the School of
Social Work. She began her study in Social Work in the fall of 2005
after obtaining a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology of Law here at the
U of M. Her interest in Social Work was initially realized during
her undergraduate years when one of her professors noticed her
enthusiasm in many aspects of social reform and her concern for the
well-being of our societal members. Her experiences in the field of
Social Work include an internship with the W.A.T.C.H organization
during her undergraduate years, where she was privileged to write
reports about the handling of domestic violence cases in our local
courts. Later that year, she worked with the Minnesota African
Women’s Association where she was able to help immigrant women and
youth deal with the challenges of assimilation while educating them
on how to foster healthy family relationships. During her first year
as an M.S.W student, she traveled abroad to Nigeria (her homeland)
where she worked with a national coalition aimed at combating the
high prevalence of domestic and international human trafficking.
Then completed an internship with Tubman Family Alliance where she
continued her advocacy work with victims of domestic violence in the
Twin-Cities area. Kunume will be working 10 hours a week on the
Violence Against Women Online Resources (VAWOR) project working on
the OVW TA Provider calendar and directory.
Jessica Bills, Research Assistant
![]()
Jessica was born and raised in Delafield, Wisconsin, located
near Milwaukee. She attended the University of Minnesota for her
undergraduate education. Jessica earned a bachelor’s degree in Child
Psychology and a minor in Family Violence Prevention in May 2006.
During her time as an undergraduate, she worked at the Institute of
Child Development as a research assistant with the Parent-Child
longitudinal study and also volunteered and interned at The Aurora
Center, the on-campus crisis center for victims of gender-based
violence. After graduation, she worked full-time as the Legal
Advocacy and Direct Services coordinator at The Aurora Center. This
will be her first year in the M.S.W. program and she is planning to
follow the direct practice concentration coursework. Her field
placement is with the Children’s Home Society and Family Services in
the general adoption department. Jessica also has a fairly severe
addiction to yarn (and knitting). Jessica will be working 10 hours a
week on the Children's Exposure to Domestic Violence Measure and
will be working between the Center for Advanced Studies in Child
Welfare and MINCAVA to find areas of collaboration.
Priya Saihgal, Volunteer
Priya Saihgal is a University of Minnesota graduate with a B.A. in
Economics. She has recently started her own web-based business. She
currently volunteers with the Missionaries of Charity in Minneapolis
and also with the Lake Owasso Residence for mentally and physically
disabled people. She loves helping others and is excited to bring
her skills and talents to MINCAVA's electronic clearinghouse. In her
spare time, she enjoys playing tennis, cooking unique dishes, and
catching nature's Kodak moments. Priya will be volunteering 10 hours
a week with the MINCAVA Electronic Clearinghouse helping with the
redesign, answering information requests, creating an international
advisory board, and posting new contents.
Our center is located in the School of
Social Work at the University of
Minnesota and we can be contacted at:
MINCAVA - Minnesota Center Against Violence & Abuse
School of Social Work, University of Minnesota
105 Peters Hall, 1404 Gortner Avenue
St. Paul, Minnesota 55108-6142 USA
tel: 612-624-0721 fax: 612-625-4288
Email Us
Map of Peters Hall and surrounding
area
