The
Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education
, led by
Daniel J. Flannery, PhD
, has been home to a distinguished group of applied community-based research, evaluation, training, and technical assistance specialists for more than 20 years. With
grants and contracts totaling over $6 million
, our center serves as a research partner to various local, state and national non-profit, foundation and government organizations to learn innovative ways to
address some of society's most pressing problems by:
- promoting social justice and community development by conducting interdisciplinary research on the causes and prevention of violence;
- educating and training social workers, teachers, law enforcement and other professionals
- developing and evaluating evidence-based best practices in violence prevention; and intervention that seek to understand the influence of mental health, substance use, trauma, youth development and related issues.
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Rachel Lovell promoted to research faculty, receives Women of Achievement award
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In June, the faculty of the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences voted to appoint
Rachel Lovell, PhD,
to the position of
Research Assistant Professor
, effective July 1, 2019.
Rachel has been with the Begun Center since 2012 as a Senior Research Associate. She has been the primary driving force behind the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative research team and projects and has made dozens of local and national media appearances. This past fall, she testified before Congress with the American Society of Criminology to offer evidence-based policy recommendations aimed at improving justice for women and girls, and this spring, was invited to serve as keynote speaker at the
Centre for Crime, Justice, and Policing Annual Conference, University of Birmingham in the UK.
Rachel joins Fred Butcher, Jeff Kretschmar, and Mark Fleisher as research faculty of the Begun Center. This brings the full number of Begun Center faculty to 7, including also Dan Flannery, David Hussey, and Mark Singer.
Additionally, Rachel will be honored in November by the Flora Stone Mather Center for Women at Case Western Reserve University with the
"Women of Achievement" award
. Rachel's Begun Center colleagues nominated her for her leadership of the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative research team and other gender-based violence research, her mentoring and effect on her team, her empowerment of others, and her kindness and generosity especially in lifting up her colleagues.
Please join us in extending well-deserved congratulations to Rachel.
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Gangs are built around social networks, not crime
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Gangs are established as social networks, not exclusively criminal enterprises as they’re commonly perceived, says Research Professor
Mark S. Fleisher, PhD
, who spent years entrenched in inner-city housing developments studying social networks and gang behavior.
Fleisher explains that cultural shifts push marginalized young people to society’s fringes, where gang connections exist.
Fleisher’s research, “The History of Gangs,” was recently published in the
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology
. The work was partly based on the six years he spent living in three housing developments in Kansas City, Missouri, and Champaign, Illinois.
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Flannery named among top 100 social work professors in the US
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Four social-work faculty members from Case Western Reserve University were named among the top 100 social workers in the nation by Taylor & Francis, an international academic publishing company. Among them is Begun Center director
Daniel J. Flannery, PhD
.
The methodology is based on the “h-index,” a listing of individuals who have extensively published scholarly works which have been highly cited by other researchers.
“What makes this distinction special is that the rankings are based on their peers’ citing their work,” said Grover C. Gilmore, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Dean in Applied Social Sciences. “This is more evidence that our faculty and researchers are the leaders in their respective fields.”
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Honoring the Life of C. Ron Huff
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A distinguished member of our National Advisory Board,
C. Ron Huff, PhD, passed away in late March.
Ron was a national leader in the areas of criminology, wrongful convictions, and gangs, having published 13 books and more than 100 scientific papers and book chapters. He served as consultant to the attorneys general of California, Ohio, and Hawaii; the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee; the F.B.I. National Academy; the U.S. Department of Justice; and numerous other agencies and organizations throughout the nation, including the American Bar Association advisory committee on wrongful convictions and the National Gang Center advisory board. He was also elected President (2000 – 2001) and Fellow (2002) of The American Society of Criminology which bestowed its most prestigious awards on Ron in recognition of his outstanding accomplishments.
Ron was Professor and Dean Emeritus of Criminology, Law and Society of the School of Social Ecology at University of California, Irvine. He was also Professor Emeritus in the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University, where he taught from 1979 – 1999, directed the John Glenn School of Public Affairs (1994-1999), and directed the Criminal Justice Research Center (1979 – 1999). He also taught at Purdue University (1976 – 1979); at UC Irvine (1974 – 1976); and as Visiting Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawaii (1995). Ron also co-edited a volume with Begun Center director Dan Flannery for American Psychiatric Press: Flannery and Huff (1999),
Youth Violence: Prevention, Intervention and Social Policy.
Above all else, Ron was a dear friend and colleague, and ardent supporter of the Begun Center. He is missed.
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Kristen M. Boyer, MEd, transitioned from her role as Research Associate to Department Administrator in August. She took over the former responsibilities of Wendy Boerger, who took a position at MetroHealth in May.
Kristen has been with the Begun Center since May 2018, and has experience with project management and administration with local hospitals.
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Joanna has been with the Begun Center since March 2018 and will continue her work with Dr. Rachel Lovell and her team on the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative.
She helps the team with data management and writing projects. Joanna has a background in various social work settings where she focused on crisis intervention, risk and safety assessment, and familial and kinship reconciliation. Joanna is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Religious Studies from Case Western Reserve University.
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Ivette Noreiga, PhD, joined the Begun Center as Post-Doctoral Scholar in Trauma and Violence Prevention.
Ivette is from the El Paso, Texas/Ciudad Juarez, MX border region.
She recently completed her doctoral degree in Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) at Texas Tech University, where she specialized in children's individual differences in memory performance for distressing events and PTSD youths' neurocognitive processing of emotional information.
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Chris Opoku-Agyeman, PhD, joined our staff as a Research Associate in May, with specific focus on our work evaluating the Settlement Agreement with the Cleveland Division of Police. He came from The University
of Akron, Department of Public Administration and The Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, where he was a
Visiting Assistant Professor and a Fellow. His received his PhD in public administration and applied policy from The University of Akron and is originally from Ghana, West Africa.
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Khyati Patel, MPH, joined our staff as a Research Associate in July. She received her MPH from Case Western Reserve University in May. She is originally from India and has passion for health promotion and disease prevention, as well as community based research.
Khyati is part of the evaluation team for the Cuyahoga County Family and Children First Council, Ohio MHAS Healthy Transitions, and other youth services programs.
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- Daniel J. Flannery, PhD, and former doctoral student (now PhD grad!) Dalhee Yoon, PhD, authored "How to Prepare Cross-National Bullying Studies: Conceptualization and Operationalization Differences."
- Jane Timmons-Mitchell, PhD, and doctoral student Seungjong Cho, MSW, authored "Gender Differences in Bullying and Suicide."
Media Mentions and Appearances
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Jane-Timmons Mitchell, PhD
SAKI research and evaluation team
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Rachel Lovell, PhD
Select Presentations
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Mark S. Fleisher, PhD, presented at the
International Network for Social Network Analysis Sunbelt Conference in Montreal, Canada:
Women in Gangs: Life-course Events & Ego-Networks
Begun Center faculty and staff presented to two separate international delegations coordinated by the U.S. Department of State and the Cleveland Council on World Affairs, with delegates Bangladesh, Malaysia, France, Pakistan, Egypt, Singapore, Afghanistan, Cyprus, Mongolia, Morocco, China, Seychelles, and Sierra Leone. The topics were "
Combating the Opioid Epidemic"
(pictured) and "
Countering Violent Extremism."
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Rachel Lovell, PhD, and Misty Luminais, PhD
- presented at the Case Western Reserve University Freedman Fellows Forum: Could what we learn from the SAKI reduce the number of rape cases in the future?
- presented at the End Violence Against Women International Conference on Sexual Assault, Intimate Partner Violence, and Increasing Access in San Diego - Integration, Not Just an Afterthought: How Incorporating Victim Advocates on a Multidisciplinary Cold Case Task Force Has Affected Victim and Prosecutorial Outcomes (pictured)
- presented at the International Association of Crime Analysts Annual Training Conference: Exploring the Geographic Dimensions of Sexual Assault through Risk Terrain Modeling.
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Jeff Kretschmar, PhD, and Fredrick Butcher, PhD, presented
at the National Council for Juvenile and Family Court Judges conference:
If We’re Talking About Risk Assessment, We Have to Talk About Race. How Good Intentions May Be Leading to Unintended Consequences
(pictured)
Jane Timmons-Mitchell, PhD, presented at Joseph Gallagher School on
school professionals as gatekeepers in recognizing trauma in students.
Jeff Kretschmar, PhD, presented:
- as part of a panel at the Shaker Heights Youth Center: Just Justice: A Discussion on Juvenile Justice Reform
- at Data Days CLE: Using Data for Impact: Lessons from the Field
Many faculty and staff attended the
32nd Annual Research and Policy Conference on Child, Adolescent, and Young Adult Behavioral Health
in Tampa, FL.
- Chris Stormann, PhD - The Ohio Healthy Transitions Project (OHTP): Serving transitional age youth with a serious emotional disturbance, a serious mental illness, or a co-occurring intellectual developmental disability in Cuyahoga (Cleveland) and Lorain (Elyria) Counties
- David L. Hussey, PhD, and Michelle L. Riske-Morris, PhD - Enhancing School Behavioral Health Supports for Tier 2 & Tier 3 Youth
- Richard Shepler, PhD - Developing Program and Practice Standards for Intensive In-Home Behavioral Health Treatment; Analyzing Medicaid Behavioral Health Service Utilization Patterns for Youth Involved in other Ohio Youth Serving Organizations
- David L. Hussey, PhD - Addressing Gaps in Behavioral Health Workforce Training Needs for Children, Youth, and Families
- Richard Shepler, PhD, and Bobbi L. Beale, PhD - Working Together for Families Trapped in Crisis: Innovative, Interactive Interventions that Engage, Increase Resilience and Stabilize Families
- Bobbi L. Beale, PhD - The Ohio Adventure Therapy Coalition Journey: Comprehensive Strategies to Provide Effective, Sustainable Treatment While Building a Research Base with Our Most Vulnerable Population
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Rachel Lovell, PhD
- was a featured panelist at Teaching Prevention 2019 in Cleveland: A Public Health Approach To Violence Prevention: The Cleveland Experience
- was invited to serve as keynote speaker at the Centre for Crime, Justice, and Policing Annual Conference, University of Birmingham, in the UK: Offending Histories and Typologies of Sexual Offenders Identified via Untested Sexual Assault Kits
- presented as part of a Victim Identification panel at the Human Trafficking Symposium, co-sponsored by Case Western Reserve School of Law and the Collaborative to End Human Trafficking at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens (pictured)
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The Begun Center was among five CWRU offices and departments honored by PEP Cleveland at their Pep Rally 4 Kids in May.
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Wendy Boerger moved on from the Begun Center in April to take a job with MetroHealth. Wendy had served as Department Administrator for the Begun Center since 2011.
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Begun Center for
Violence Prevention
Research and Education
Daniel J. Flannery, PhD,
Director
Jeff Kretschmar, PhD,
Managing Director
Richard Shepler, PhD,
Director, Center for Innovative Practices
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