Barrier Free Living (BFL) is excited to congratulate Dr. Michelle S. Ballan on her 2024 National Crime Victims’ Service Building Knowledge Through Research Award.

On April 25. 2024 Assistant Attorney General Amy L. Solomon and Office for Victims of Crime Director Kristina Rose recognized 8 individuals and organizations for their advocacy, innovation, and research on behalf of victims of crime.

“We recognize the individuals and organizations represented here that go above and beyond to assist others in their time of crisis,” Assistant Attorney General Solomon said. “They are the ones who ensure that crime victims and survivors aren’t forgotten. They provide them with the support they need today and the encouragement and hope they will need tomorrow.”

The event’s theme, “How would you help? Options, services, and hopes for crime survivors,” is a call-to-action for society to create safe environments for crime victims to share what happened to them.

Barrier Free Living nominated Dr. Ballan. BFL CEO Cynthia Amodeo says:

“Dr. Ballan works collaboratively with practitioners and non profits, not only helping them to understand the needs of their clients better, but also to build the research infrastructure needed to document the effectiveness of their work. Her approach is distinctive in that, rather than coming to an organization with a rigid preformulated research plan, she asks each agency what their research needs are and helps formulate the questions to be asked. By listening to the practitioners and learning from their experiences, she is able to design a research plan that is best suited for the organization, and that has their full support because they helped design it.”

View Dr. Ballan’s video. 

Read the press release and a list of the 2024 NCVRW award recipients.

Michelle Ballan, Ph.D., MSW, is a Professor and Associate Dean for Research at the School of Social Welfare; Professor of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine at Renaissance School of Medicine; Research Director for the Stony Brook Early Childhood Clinic; and Director of the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities (LEND) Center at Stony Brook University.