Expanding the Forensic Narrative: Engaging Surviving Family Members in the DV Fatality Review Process

Webinar Description

The main purpose of reviewing domestic violence fatalities is to prevent future domestic violence and deaths. Review teams seek information about a victim’s death from multiple sources such as law enforcement, social service, and health care to identify risks, system breakdowns, and strategies to ensure safety. However, to understand what life was like for the victim and what it was like engaging with service agencies, review teams across the country and in England are also talking with those who likely knew the victim best: family, friends and community members.This webinar will explore the importance of involving family/friends/community with the domestic violence fatality review process and how they have enhanced system changes and fatality prevention.

Presenter Information

Dr. Janet Wilson

Dr. Wilson is an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, College of Nursing Doctoral Programs and Associate Director of Community Based Interdisciplinary Research for the Reynolds Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. A highly sought after national and internationally recognized consultant, author, and researcher in the area of family violence, Dr. Wilson’s research focus is how women and children from different cultural, socio-economic backgrounds safely disengage from intimate partner violence. Dr. Wilson is a founding member of the Oklahoma Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board (ODVFRB) and served as chair, co-chair, and is currently an Oklahoma Attorney General appointed member to review all intimate partner homicides for the state. She is a consultant to the National Domestic Violence Fatality Review Initiative in Arizona where she assists states to develop fatality review teams to gather/analyze data to identify problems and solutions for prevention. With this national group she works with surviving family members and children of intimate partner homicides.

Frank Mullane

Frank Mullane is the director of Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse (AAFDA), a charity helping families after domestic homicide. He is credited with being the driving force behind the introduction of Domestic Homicide Reviews into England and the involvement of families, friends and community members. Frank is a member of the national quality assurance panel for these reviews and been consulted by families and others on around 90 of these inquiries. He is a visiting university lecturer and a student assessor. Frank was commissioned to help form the statutory guidance for these reviews and to write leaflets for the families. In 2013, following his recommendation, the guidance was amended to improve the rights of families to involvement.

Frank’s sister Julia and nephew William Pemberton were murdered by Alan Pemberton in 2003. The family campaigned for five years to uncover all the facts and Frank still meets with the agencies involved. The Pemberton Review was described by one expert as “..a landmark achievement in the field of domestic violence fatality or homicide review....., the review sets a gold standard in terms of its detailed appreciation of the complex issues in domestic violence cases…..”