“As long as there are women in this country and around the world who live in fear of violence, there’s more we have to do to fulfill this sacred commitment. No one — no one, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, should experience abuse. Period. And if they do, they should have the services and support they need to get through it. And we’re not going to rest.”

President Joseph R. Biden

Join your Women’s Fund for an -action-provoking virtual event as national and local experts  delve into the first-ever U.S. National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence: Strategies for Action. This comprehensive plan addresses the urgent need to prevent and respond to gender-based violence, from sexual assault to intimate partner violence and more.

Gender-based violence is a public safety and public health crisis affecting urban, suburban, rural, and Tribal communities across the United States and in Miami-Dade County. Individuals of all backgrounds experience it, and can occur across their life course. During this conversation, we will bring the plan home and discuss key pillars to create a Free-From-Violence Miami-Dade for women and girls.

Mark your calendar for this enlightening Impact Collaborative event, taking place virtually via Zoom Webinar on Thursday, October 5, from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.  Together, we can turn this plan into a transformative force for change in our own communities!

KEYNOTE

Caroline Bettinger-López

Senior Advisor on Gender & Equality, U.S. Department of Justice, Office for Victims of Crime

Professor of Law, Faculty Chair of the Human Rights Program, and Director of the Human Rights Clinic at University of Miami School of Law (on leave)

Caroline Bettinger-López is Senior Advisor on Gender and Equality at the U.S. Department of Justice, Office for Victims of Crime, where she has helped to lead the development of the first-ever U.S. National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence. In Fall 2021, she served as a Special Advisor to the White House Gender Policy Council. She is currently on leave from her role as Professor of Law, Faculty Chair of the Human Rights Program, and Director of the Human Rights Clinic at University of Miami School of Law, which she founded in 2011. From 2017-2021, Professor Bettinger-López served as an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, in addition to her teaching responsibilities. From 2015-2017, she served in the Obama-Biden Administration as the White House Advisor on Violence Against Women, Senior Advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, and member of the White House Council on Women and Girls. Professor Bettinger-López engages in advocacy before domestic and international law and policy forums to address gender-based violence, racial justice, and immigrants’ rights. She has taught at University of Chicago School of Law and Columbia Law School; and was a Skadden Fellow at the ACLU Women’s Rights Project and federal law clerk. She is a Commissioner on the Lancet Commission on Gender-Based Violence and Maltreatment of Young People. She is the recipient of a Roddenberry Fellowship (COURAGE in Policing Project) and a TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund grant (Voces Unidas Project, to support low-wage immigrant women workers).

PANELISTS

Alex R. Piquero is Professor in the Department of Sociology & Criminology and Arts & Sciences Distinguished Scholar the University of Miami and previously served as the Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one of the nation’s thirteen federal statistical agencies (appointed by President Biden, June 2022). Dr. Piquero is a nationally and internationally recognized criminologist with more than 26 years of experience. Over the course of his career, Dr. Piquero has given congressional testimony on evidence-based crime prevention practices and has provided counsel and support to several local, state, national and international criminal justice agencies and elected leaders. His expertise ranges from criminal careers to criminal justice policy and crime prevention to the intersection of race/ethnicity and crime, with a focus on quantitative methodology. Dr. Piquero has published over 500 scholarly articles and several books and is among the most highly cited criminologists in the world. He also served as editor of the Journal of Quantitative Criminology and the Justice Evaluation Journal. He is a Fellow of both the American Society of Criminology and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. In 2019, he received the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Bruce Smith Sr. Award for outstanding contributions to criminal justice, and in 2020, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Division of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology of the American Society of Criminology.

Lucia Davis-Raiford currently serves as President & CEO of the Carrie Meek Foundation. Prior to working at the Foundation, Lucia was the Director of Miami-Dade County’s Community Action and Human Services Department. She was also Founding Director of the Domestic Violence Unit at New York City’s Police Department. Her past board positions include The Carrie Meek Foundation and the Women’s Fund of Miami Dade.

A South Florida native, Santra Denis is the Executive Director of the Miami Workers Center, a member-led organization organizing towards dignity, power, and self-determination with domestic workers, tenants, and families in Miami, FL.

Trained as a Public Health Professional, Ms. Denis graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Health Science and a Master of Public Health in Policy and Management from Florida International University. She has had the opportunity to work for the Catalyst Miami, Shands Healthcare, Care Resource, and Bay Pines VA Healthcare System,

Ms. Denis has developed her own leadership as an anti-classist and anti-racist community organizer and is committed to centering the leadership of Black and Immigrant working-class people. Ms. Denis has been very active in her community, founding Avanse Ansanm, an organization that engages, connects, and builds power among Haitian-American Millennials. She served as the Senior Vice-President for the Urban League of Broward County Young Professionals Network where she spearheaded the 1st Annual State of Young Black Broward Forum on health, criminal justice, and economics.

She is a New Leaders Council Fellow, the premier leadership and professional development, training, mentoring, networking, and career and political advancement program for young professionals. Ms. Denis is a Sant La Fellow, a Haitian American Leadership program for young adults in Miami Dade County. She serves as a member of the Community Advisory Board at Florida International University Research Center in Minority Institutions. She also serves as a board member for Miami Dade County’s Office of New Americans and the Black Mothers Care Plan (BMCP) Advisory Board.

Ms. Denis has been recognized for her commitment to social justice in South Florida by the Broward County Commission on the Status of Women as a Valiant Woman of the Vote; Ruth’s List Broward as a “Breaking the Glass Ceiling” Award Recipient; the Haitian-American Chamber of Commerce of Florida as part of the Inaugural Class of Leaders for the esteemed award of “20 Under 40 Young Professionals” as well as “40 under 40” Leaders of Today, among others.

Ms. Denis is a lover of all people and her life’s mission is to dismantle systems of oppression for the liberation of all people.