Details:
Please join us for our fifth installment of our Brown Bag Speaker Series, featuring a presentation by Professor Jane Stoever, titled “Using Psychological Models to Increase the Efficacy of Legal Responses to Domestic Violence.”
This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.
Date:
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014
Time:
12-:00 – 1:00pm
Location:
University of California, Irvine campus, Social Ecology I Building, room 112
Abstract:
The dominant theories used to explain domestic violence, namely, the Power and Control Wheel and the Cycle of Violence, provide only limited insight into intimate partner abuse. Both theories focus exclusively on the abusive partner’s wrongful actions, consistent with recent decades’ concentration on criminalization, but fail to educate about the survivor’s needs and process of ending violence. The Stages of Change Model from the field of psychology, conversely, reveals the process through which domestic abuse survivors seek an end to relationship violence and identifies the survivor’s needs and actions at various stages. This critical information should inform domestic violence law and the representation of abuse survivors; however, this model remains unknown in the legal profession. Professor Stoever will discuss how insights from the Stages of Change Model can transform how lawyers represent abuse survivors. She will also recommend several substantive law changes, procedural rule reforms, and improvements to legal and advocacy interventions that can be realized based on an understanding of the Stages of Change Model.
Speaker Bio:
Professor Stoever’s scholarly work focuses on the multiple oppressions domestic violence survivors face and explores ways that the law can better respond to complex experiences of intimate partner abuse. In addressing the interdisciplinary problem of domestic violence, her scholarship frequently brings together the worlds of law, public health, psychology, and survivors’ lived experiences. Along with presenting her scholarship at numerous conferences, Professor Stoever organized and hosted an annual cross-disciplinary domestic violence symposium in Seattle from 2009-2012, with leading academics and audiences of over 400 participants. Professor Stoever has also been featured in Harvard Law School’s Women’s Rights Guide. She additionally serves as the director of the Domestic Violence Clinic.
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