UNH Hosts International Conference On Family Violence

By Erika Mantz, Media Relations

More than 300 researchers from around the world are participating in the University of New Hampshire’s ninth international conference on family violence research, which concludes Wednesday, July 13, at the Sheraton Harborside Hotel and Conference Center in Portsmouth.

Sponsored by UNH’s Family Research Laboratory and Crimes against Children Research Center, as well as the Family Violence and Sexual Assault Institute, the conference features ground-breaking research on family violence, child sexual abuse, treatment programs for batterers, family violence as it relates to people with disabilities, international perspectives on family violence, bullying, and ethical issues in family violence.

The conference opened with a keynote speech Sunday, July 10, by sociologist Murray Straus, co-director of the Family Research Laboratory. Straus provided a world perspective on gender and partner violence based on results from his International Dating Violence Study. His speech was followed by remarks from the conference co-chairs, David Finkelhor and Emily Douglas.

Following are some of the featured speakers:

• What Battered Women Know and Do: Results and Methodological Challenges from the Domestic Violence Risk Assessment Validation Experiment. Jacquelyn Campbell, Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

• Assessing the Risk of Violence: Static, Stable and Acute Factors. R. Karl Hanson, Carleton University & Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada.

• How is Couple Violence Difference from Other Forms of Violence? Richard Felson, Pennsylvania State University.

• Opening Pandora’s Box: Defining and Responding to the Co-Occurrence of Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment. Glenda Kaufman Kantor, University of New Hampshire.