Grand Challenge: Build Healthy Relationships to End Violence

Gary Taylor is an independent consultant and coach, to child welfare organizations and leaders in areas of strategic planning, leadership development, coaching and institutional analysis. Much of his 35-year career was spent at the Orange County Social Service Agency beginning as a Social Worker, and progressing to eventually serving as the County’ Child Welfare Director for 7 years. As a Director his responsibilities included the oversight of a $300,000,000.00 budget and providing leadership to 1500 employees responsible for aiding him in operating all child welfare programs, from Differential Response through Post Adoption and ensuring child safety and stability for children and their families through the use of prevention services, early intervention practices and building their protective capacities, moving families toward self-sufficiency and relying on their natural supports. Upon retiring in 2016 Gary was resolute that he still had much to contribute to the field of child welfare and began teaching Child Welfare Policy and Grant Writing at California State University Fullerton. He now serves as a Senior Fellow at the Child Welfare League of America providing consulting services to states and planning the League’s annual conference. Additionally, he provides other key consulting services, including contributing to Futures Without Violence on a federally funded project developing a different approach to Domestic Violence.

Before launching Latinos United for Peace & Equity, Ruby White Starr served as the Chief Strategy Officer and Director of Casa de Esperanza’s, National Latin@ Network for Healthy Families and Communities (NLN). Here, she led programs such as the Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women’s (OVW) program to Enhance Culturally Specific Services for Victims and the Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, and Stalking on Campus program to strengthen the response of institutions of higher education. Prior to the NLN, Ruby spent the bulk of more than 15 years as Assistant Director of the Family Violence Department for the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ). At NCJFCJ, Ruby directed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, national Resource Center on Domestic Violence: Child Protection and Custody and the OVW’s Safe Haven’s Supervised Visitation and Exchange Technical Assistance Program; the Adolescent Relationship Abuse Training for Judges Program; and the Federal Greenbook Initiative, an interagency collaboration to address the co-occurrence of domestic violence and child maltreatment.

From 2004 to 2012, Ruby served as President of the Board of Directors for the National Latino Alliance for the Elimination of Domestic Violence, the most prominent national organization of its time working to eliminate domestic violence in the Latino community. She is a former national advisory committee member for the Women of Color Network and past president of the Board of Directors of the Nevada Network Against Domestic Violence. Ruby is the author of several articles including Resiliency in Children Exposed to Family Violence; Promoting Safety in Cases Involving Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment; Working at the Intersections: Promoting Access and Accountability, and Moving from the Mainstream to the Margins: Lessons in Culture and Power. In addition to her professional experience, Ruby shares her personal experience as a child witness and child, adolescent, and adult victim of violence in hopes that her experiences will lead to better practices and outcomes for women, children, and families who experience violence.

Lonna Davis, MSW, is the Director of the Children & Youth Program at Futures Without Violence. Lonna brings personal experience as a survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault, and 30 years of a demonstrated track record on behalf of families who experience violence. Lonna leads a great team that provides support and guidance to communities and systems working to prevent sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse in order to help ALL survivors of violence heal and thrive. 

Juliana Carlson, PhD is an Associate Professor at the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare. Before joining the KU faculty in 2013, she practiced for more than 10 years in a variety of positions, including domestic violence advocate and community organizer, in Kansas City, Chicago, and St. Paul/Minneapolis. Dr. Carlson’s teaching and mentoring focus on developing students’ critical understanding of the framing and impact of policy solutions and cultivating community organizing and policy advocacy skills, including collaborative practice. She has taught at all program levels, including the doctoral social welfare policy course, since 2015, with a focus on intersectional policy analysis and racial equity. Dr. Carlson’s research focuses on examining and developing system-level responses to end gender-based violence with particular attention to engaging men in prevention and increasing gender equity. Dr. Carlson published more than 25 peer reviewed articles, and presented more than 60 papers at local, national, and international research events, including in India, Sweden, and Uganda. She currently is Principal Investigator on the Quality Improvement Center on Domestic Violence in Child Welfare a federally funded project through the Department of Health and Human Services and the evaluator for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment grant awarded to KU’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Education Center. In addition to these positions, she provides expertise and service at the university, local, state, national, and international level for gender-based violence prevention work. For example, Dr. Carlson was appointed and served on Chancellor’s Task Force on Sexual Assault at the University of Kansas from 2014-2015, and served for multiple years on the Kansas Coalition against Sexual and Domestic Violence, Advisory Board, for the statewide primary prevention conference and the Kansas Governor’s Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board.