Barrier Free Living’s Secret Garden attended the End Violence Against Women International (EVAWI) Conference in St. Louis, MO this August.

The EVAWI conferences  address “attention focused on the many barriers confronting sexual assault victims, and the challenges associated with investigating and prosecuting cases. One critical step in changing this reality is to improve the way victims are interviewed. Better interviews will result in more thorough investigations that improve criminal justice outcomes: Excluding suspects where appropriate, and successfully prosecuting cases where the facts and evidence warrant.”

The conferences are designed to support this transformation. “With an understanding of how the brain responds to trauma, and an appreciation for how trauma affects memory encoding, storage and recall, we now have the potential to become truly “trauma informed” in the interviewing practices.”

Speakers at the St. Louis conference included Christia Currie, MSW, Training and Technical Assistance, You Have Options Program, Carrie Hull, Detective, Ashland PD, OR, Kimberly A. Lonsway, PhD, Director of Research, EVAWI, San Luis Obispo, CA, Russell W. Strand, Advisory Board Member, EVAWI, Special Agent (Ret), Co-Owner, Strand & Heitman Innovative Forensic Techniques (SHIFT) LLC, Rolla, MO, and Christopher Wilson, PsyD, Psychologist, Portland, OR.

Future EVAWI Conferences:

2018: April 3-5, Hilton Chicago, Chicago, IL
2019: April 22-24, Manchester Grand Hyatt, San Diego, CA
2020: April 15-17, Washington Hilton, Washington, DC
2021: April 5-7, Sheraton Boston, Boston, MA
2022: April 19-21, Hilton San Francisco Union Square, San Francisco, CA
2023: April 11-13, Hilton Chicago, Chicago, IL
2024: April 2-4, Marriott Marquis, Atlanta GA
2025: April 22-24, Anaheim Marriott, Anaheim, CA
2026: April 7-9, Sheraton New Orleans, New Orleans, LA
2027: March 30-April 1, Washington Hilton, Washington, DC
2028: April 17-19, Gaylord Rockies, Aurora, CO