Helping States Reduce Family and Intimate Partner Violence

Education

I’m different from most CDCers–my background is in social work, not public health. I completed my undergraduate degree at Valparaiso University, a small university in Northwest Indiana, where I majored in psychology and sociology. Following graduation, I managed a middle school mentoring program funded by the U.S. Department of Education. It connected kids to caring adults in the community so that the kids could gain skills and have trusted people in their lives, and it allowed me to see an important theory in sociology come to life. The idea is that a person’s behavior and development is shaped in a major way by his or her immediate and broader social and physical environments. These influences are summed up in the Social Ecological Model (SEM) of Behavior Change, which is akin to the social work theory of person-in-environment. A simple example is the young program participant who was always late to class because his mom had 3 jobs and wasn’t there to make sure he was up and ready for school. I matched him with a mentor who noticed this pattern and bought the boy an alarm clock. The boy’s school attendance improved, but if we hadn’t taken the time to understand his environment, we never could have set up the simple intervention. Becoming aware of the SEM and seeing it play out d drove me to pursue further education through a Master’s in Social Work program, which is an incredibly versatile degree. I completed my MSW in 2009 at what is now Indiana University Indianapolis. 

Social Work Jobs Prior to CDC

I’d encountered sexual violence in college, and so consequently, all my college and grad school projects were violence related. When I completed my MSW, I looked for a job in violence prevention­,­­­ the topical thread that would run throughout my career. My search initially focused on college campuses, but I ended up in a Family Justice Center, one of a couple of dozen 1-stop domestic violence agencies around the country funded by a program signed into law in 2003 by George W. Bush. Its goal was to reduce a victim’s barriers to service access by consolidating services under one roof and making them all culturally competent. My title was Victim Services Coordinator. I saw victims of violence come through the door every day and, after a year, I realized that I wanted to move away from the direct service side of things—my passion was prevention.

Before joining CDC, I spent almost four years working at the Indiana State Department of Health as the Violence Prevention Program Coordinator. In that role, I managed the Rape Prevention and Education Program for the state, working with contractors and locally funded programs to implement and evaluate their primary prevention programs. I became the Women’s Health Director in 2013, shortly before an opportunity arose to move up to CDC.

First CDC Job

I joined CDC in 2014 as a Public Health Advisor, and I was so grateful to be there. I was a project officer, charged with managing federally funded programs for the Rape Prevention and Education (RPE) Program in 5 states. All 50 states and some territories got funds for this program, which had been authorized by the Violence Against Women Act since 1994. I also served as a project officer for the Domestic Violence Prevention Enhancements and Leaderships Through Alliances (DELTA) program. I oversaw intimate partner violence prevention cooperative agreements for 5 state domestic violence coalitions in the same states where I worked as an RPE Project Officer. I stayed in this position for 3 years, loved the work, had a great team and boss, and felt like I was finally on the right path.

Later CDC Job

The thinking of my initial branch leadership was that having one project officer monitor RPE and DELTA programs in the same states would facilitate organizational connections and avoid redundancy in program activities. Redundancy is a matter of concern because there is some overlap in the risk factors for sexual and intimate partner violence, as well as between some of the interventions highlighted in CDC resource documents as being evidence-based. A year later, a new branch chief came in with a new vision, and I was moved full-time to the RPE Program, this time with 8-10 states.

In both assignments, I helped my states think through the best way to use their funds and had so many ideas that I always wrote the longest site visit reports! States would submit proposals to us, and then we worked with them until their proposals met the program requirements. We tried to move everyone towards outer levels of the SEM to have the broadest impact, but our advice was always tailored to a site’s specific characteristics. We helped them form strategic local partnerships (e.g., with programs that foster economic stability for women), mobilize local resources (e.g., male allies in fraternities and on sports teams), and think through what promoting protective factors should look like in their communities (e.g., targeting active-duty members of the military in places with large military bases and unusually high rates of sexual violence and suicide).

With RPE, states had base grants and then population-proportional funding on top of that, totaling millions in very large states. When I started, one small state that I worked with was funding 20 programs at the level of $20,000 each. Although appearing fair because it spread the money evenly around the state, that practice meant that funding was insufficient everywhere­­; it wouldn’t even pay for one fulltime staff person. Over time, I helped them understand this and think through better ways to use their funding. By my 2nd site visit, they were initiating a competitive process that would fund 3-4 programs through a tiered structure that emphasized community-level initiatives (e.g., safer physical environments, adoption of prevention policies in schools). I felt so proud of how their thinking shifted to align with what we know works best, and that’s just one snapshot.  

Final CDC Job

In August of 2020, another branch restructuring created a new team to manage all the training and technical assistance (TTA) that was delivered to funded sites. I was selected to be team lead. This covered not only RPE and DELTA, the programs I had worked in, but also Youth Violence Prevention and Childhood Abuse and Neglect. The TTA was both overarching and program-specific.

I had to structure the new unit, coordinate the TTA, and streamline procedures. I started with a team of 3-4 and, at its height, the team numbered 15. It included both full-time, permanent and temporary CDC staff; fellows; contractors; and Commissioned Corps members. We conducted webinars, created resources, and provided individualized TTA. I really enjoyed the process of developing my employees­, helping them improve their skills, identify areas of interest, and move into their next opportunity. I was especially pleased that they shared what they were learning with each other.

We were thoughtful about the TTA. There was a request system and we did respond to TTA requests from individual sites, but we also looked across programs and requests to identify training topics that would be useful for all the sites. Each year there was a TTA plan based on data from the previous year. The data included trainee’s evaluations of TTA they had been given, project officer reports of unaddressed or emerging problems encountered in the field, controlled studies of program effectiveness, annual project reports, and national surveillance. For example, our division’s surveillance branch conducted the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) which collected data on prior victimization from a victim’s perspective. For example, the anonymous NISVS asked respondents to characterize their perpetrators, and knowing the most common characteristics of perpetrators in each site helped us think though our prevention strategy and the TTA needed to carry it out.

Work was stressful, but I felt so fortunate to get paid to do what I loved and would volunteer to do on my own time. Then, in 2021, I was diagnosed with cancer and was out of the office for 9 months. A friend and colleague became acting team lead, and then co-lead when I returned to work. I had successfully re-integrated into my leadership role when I was unexpectedly re-diagnosed just three years later when my cancer spread. I went through heavy chemo in 2025 and was out of work half the time. My work shifted; I couldn’t supervise or lead projects. But I appreciated having my work to look forward to and having something to which I could contribute.

Proudest Achievement

I’m proudest of the Technical Assistance Coordination and Training (TACT) team I built. I think it was a really great team; everyone said they loved it and didn’t want to go anywhere else.

The team members had a mission, and they worked together to do the best they could to serve the public. This was a group of servant leaders who went well above and beyond, always willing to learn new things, do new things. Several former members said it was the best team they had ever been on, and that I was their best boss. That was the legacy I was hoping to leave, and I’m proud that I was able to be in that position for those few short years. Unfortunately, my entire team was permanently separated in August. No one has been taken back in any capacity.

Impact of the Work

We wouldn’t rubberstamp just any program a state recipient proposed. In 2016, I co-authored the first version of a document (part of CDC’s Prevention Resources for Action series) that outlined the high-level strategies and specific approaches to sexual violence prevention that had the best available evidence of impact. That standard of justification was required for approval of a state’s RPE program plan.  An example of an effective broad strategy is creating protective environments. Within that, an example of an effective approach is Shifting Boundaries, a model intervention from New York middle schools that lowered peer sexual violence by 40%. Its methods included revising school protocols for responding to incidents, using temporary building-based restraining orders to keep respectful boundaries between victims and perpetrators, and increasing staff monitoring of building “hot spots” identified by student mapping.

For all our funded programs, there were robust requirements for evaluation. All parties involved needed to know whether national models were working for each unique local audience.

Victimization numbers have been relatively stable for decades, but interpreting those statistics is tricky. Funding for most effective interventions is insufficient to reach everyone at risk, and sustained intervention at multiple system levels may be needed for measurable change in survey findings.

It’s also possible that prevention has lowered the incidence of violence, but the decrease has been masked by a cultural shift over time towards a greater willingness for victims to speak up (e.g., the “Me Too” movement). Teasing apart the factors driving survey trends requires controlled research, but the research branch that conducted such studies in our CDC division was eliminated in the RIF.

Leaving CDC

As staff who helped recipients implement federal funding on the ground, we felt relatively safe. We were hands-on public health. We ran the program. But we were naive.

When my team started to believe that the RIF might affect us, I still felt that there was no way I would lose my job because I was near the top of my branch in terms of seniority. Despite this, I did start to prepare. I had sent myself my resume and SF-50 (the official document that records every personnel action affecting an employee’s position, pay, or status), among other documents. Still, when April 1st happened and I got one of those letters, I was in shock. Our entire branch was riffed. People were just devastated, upset, scared, worried, angry. The way it came down across our division didn’t make any sense to us. I felt rudderless, like I lost a part of me—what gave my life meaning. I’ve struggled to get that back. All that when you’re facing a terminal diagnosis is tough.

Future Plans

I have a lot of challenges health-wise and just got approved for federal disability retirement. I’m doing things that bring me joy and that allow me to continue to have an impact. I volunteer with Emory University’s Winship Cancer Institute, and I’m exploring opportunities for cancer advocacy at the public policy level. But I’m still trying to find my footing, and I haven’t found an avenue to continue in violence prevention. I miss my friends. I miss my colleagues. I miss my team. I miss the work. I miss serving the public. Someday soon, hopefully, I will again feel fulfilled by the work I’m doing, and I will find a way to continue to build my legacy.

Other Comments

I wish the public would understand that we lost our careers and our passion projects. The main reason we were doing the work was that we felt so strongly about its importance.