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:
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
Abby Johnson, Research Assistant
Abby moved to Minnesota from the mountains of Montana to pursue a dual masters degree in Social Work and Public Health. She is focusing on community practice for her MSW and maternal and child health for her MPH. Before moving to Minneapolis, Abby earned her B.S. in Psychology with a minor in Women’s Studies from Montana State University. During her time there, Abby was an advocate with her campus crisis center, as well as being actively involved with Students Against Sexual Assault. As part of MINCAVA, Abby will be providing support and maintenance to the MINCAVA Electronic Clearinghouse project.
Anna Stern, Research Assistant
Anna Stern is a first year student in the Masters of Social Work program. She graduated from Macalester College with a degree in Women's and Gender Studies in 2001. For the past ten years, Anna has worked with domestic and sexual violence victims in shelter, the court system, and as the coordinator of the statewide Day One network. She has also been actively engaged in social justice work, particularly around strengthening domestic and sexual violence services for marginalized communities. At MINCAVA, Anna provides research assistance on the VAWOR project.
Elizabeth Cutter-Wilson, Document Development Coordinator
Elizabeth Cutter-Wilson is a first year doctoral student at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Elizabeth has her B.A. from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and her MSW from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She recently completed a social work fellowship with Harvard Medical School and the Children’s Hospital of Boston were she focused on adolescent mental health issues and screening for teen dating violence in clinical settings. Her research area of interest is teen dating violence.
Jennifer Witt, MSW - Interim Director
Jennifer Witt currently directs a U.S. Department of Justice-Office on Violence Against Women Technical Assistance project which works to produce Internet based content on violence against women. She also oversees development of applied research documents for the National Online Resource Center on Violence Against Women (VAWnet). This is a series of highly used, research oriented documents directed towards advocates and service providers regarding the most current research on domestic violence. Lastly, Jennifer teaches in the University of Minnesota’s Family Violence Prevention program.
Jennifer is a graduate of the University of WI at La Crosse and received her Masters of Social Work from the University of Minnesota. She has worked in both domestic violence and sexual assault prevention. These positions have ranged from direct service provision, coordinating a Coordinated Community Response (CCR) to Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, and state-wide systems advocacy. Jennifer has also worked on various community organizing and public education projects within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.
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.
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
