Bedminster office
Fishponds office
Kingswood office
The Domestic Abuse Conference Bristol 2023
The Domestic Abuse Conference Bristol 2023
![](/cms/photo/article/main_Mainpic2023alt.jpg)
The Domestic Abuse Conference Bristol 2023 is a multi-agency conference designed to provide information, advice and inspiration to a wide range of professionals who regularly encounter and deal with domestic abuse.
A varied and stellar speaker list will educate and provide delegates with an insight into a vast array of professional practices relating to domestic abuse.
Solicitors, barristers, social workers, NHS workers, police, charities, local authorities, colleges and universities, school employees and housing associations will benefit from this full day of various speakers.
It is also an excellent opportunity to network and make new contacts.
Lunch and afternoon refreshments are fully included in the ticket price.
This is a not-for-profit event; revenue generated from ticket sales goes directly towards covering costs of running the event and enables us to offer tickets at a reduced rate for personnel of charities and domestic abuse support services.
The reduced rate for charities and domestic abuse service personnel is £10 per ticket. Full ticket price is £50.
Speakers for this year’s conference include:
Chief Inspector Sharon Baker, Professional Standards and Domestic Abuse Lead, Avon & Somerset Police
Chief Inspector Sharon Baker is a professional standards and domestic abuse lead at Avon and Somerset Police. A domestic abuse survivor herself, CI Sharon Baker gained national attention when, in 2020, she made a video detailing her experience of being in a controlling, abusive relationship. Initially intended for internal police consumption only, to her surprise, 138 officers in her force contacted her to say they had also experienced domestic abuse. That video is now on YouTube. After the video, she was made domestic abuse lead.
CI Baker was recognised for her tireless work around domestic abuse when she won the Police Federation’s prestigious Outstanding Contribution to Women in Policing Award in 2021. She was nominated for her efforts to promote change and help for victims within the force, including forming an innovative method for how disclosures of domestic abuse within the force are managed.
Dr Jane Monckton-Smith
Dr Jane Monckton-Smith is Professor of Public Protection at the University of Gloucestershire. She has authored a new theoretical framework for tracking homicide risk in cases of domestic abuse and stalking. Her wider body of work is acknowledged as having societal impact and influence, and is described as outstanding and innovative.
In addition to academic work she maintains a wide portfolio of professional and case work. This includes chairing statutory Domestic Homicide Reviews, providing investigative support on current and cold homicide cases, training professionals in risk and threat assessment, and providing risk assessment in current cases of coercive control and stalking.
Professor Gill Hague
Gill Hague is Professor Emerita of Violence Against Women Studies at the University of Bristol and has been an activist, practitioner and researcher on violence against women nationally and internationally for nearly 50 years. She has worked closely with Women's Aid nationally throughout this period and was a founder of the Centre for Gender and Violence Research, at Bristol, in 1990, now one of the largest such in the world. The Centre, based in the School for Policy Studies, plays a key role in researching gender-based violence in this country and internationally, and developing new policy and practice initiatives.
She has produced more than 140 publications, including eight books, on violence against women and is especially known for influential research on raising the voices of women survivors of violence, on multi-agency work, on disabled women and domestic abuse, on 'honour'-based violence and on trans-national partnerships with women's organisations internationally.
Professor Hague has received both a CBE and an Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize for her life’s work on gender violence.
Sarah O’Leary, Chief Executive of Missing Link Mental Health Services, Next Link Domestic Abuse and Safe Link Sexual Violence Support Services
Missing Link, Next Link, and Safe Link have a reputation for delivering value led, trauma informed support which is externally accredited and offers a range of unique support which combines all our skills and expertise.
Before becoming the CEO in January 2021, Sarah was the Senior Service Manager of the domestic and sexual abuse services. She started by volunteering over 12 years ago as a rape crisis helpline worker and soon after became a qualified Independent Sexual Violence Advisor, working across Avon and Somerset with young people who had survived rape or sexual assault and had mental ill health. She is committed to ensuring that services are informed and embed the lived experience of the people that use them. She has extensive experience of providing support and advocacy services and in depth understanding of the complex interplay between mental ill health and people’s experiences including domestic and sexual violence and abuse.
More speakers tbc
For more information, please email Jonathon Sinnott at js@watkinssolicitors.co.uk.