Board

Representatives of member organisations elect the WWP EN board during the Annual General Assembly (AGM). The board officers (Chair, Secretary, Treasurer) are elected by the board members. These officers are responsible for the financial and administrative monitoring and the preparation of board and general meetings.

The board

  • meets quarterly,
  • comprises staff from WWP EN member organisations,
  • is balanced in terms of regions and genders represented, as well as representation of perpetrator programmes and victim/survivor support organisations,
  • actively supports the team's work, and
  • has the important task of strategic planning for the network.

Dean is a Professor of Psychology at the Department of Psychology, University of Zagreb, Croatia. His research interests include recovery from trauma, post-conflict community social reconstruction, development and evaluation of psychosocial interventions, prevention of violence in adolescent relationships, treatment of perpetrators of gender based violence. Over the past 18 years, he led the development of Croatia’s first perpetrator program, provided individual and group treatment to perpetrators and victims, helped design the training program for providers who work with perpetrators and delivered trainings across Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina and Macedonia. He consulted national lawmakers regarding the inclusion of work with perpetrator into Croatian laws, contributed to writing several national strategies to combat GBV with emphasis on work with perpetrators, and authored the national standards for work with perpetrators. He was a member of the interim board of the newly founded WWP EN and helped develop the organization’s statutes and other documents. Currently, he is president of the Croatian Society for Traumatic Stress (CSTS). In 2011, he received the European award Walter de Loos for Excellence in European Trauma Work.

Christian is a clinical psychologist who works in Graz, Austria, at the Association for Men’s and Gender Issues (AMGI). AMGI provides psycho-social work for men and boys, gender-reflective work with boys and research on men and gender. He helped to set up the perpetrator programme several years ago, and he organises the cooperation with victim support organisations for the programme. Christian is board member of national umbrella organisations and active in several working groups, e.g. Dachverband für Männer-, Burschen- und Väterarbeit in Österreich (DMÖ; umbrella organisation for the work with men, boys and fathers in Austria) and Dachverband Vernetzte Opferschutzorientierte Täterarbeit (DV-OTA; umbrella organisation for co-ordinated victim-support focused work with perpetrators). Within the perpetrator programme in Graz, his focus is on risk assessment and management.

David was directly involved in setting up the CHANGE Programme, the first court-mandated group-work programme for male domestic violence perpetrators in the UK. He developed and delivered the men’s the programme for a period of nine years and co-wrote the manual (Men Who Are Violent to Women, Russell House, 1997) which was subsequently widely adopted by many practitioners throughout the UK and Ireland.

Currently a Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Stirling in Scotland, David has published widely on aspects of practice with abusive men. His contribution to practice in this field was acknowledged in the guidelines for the ‘Building Better Relationships’ programme developed by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) in England and Wales.

He has also edited a practitioners handbook, From Fear to Freedom (BASW Venture Press 2009) written by several UK practitioners with expertise in domestic violence perpetrator work. David’s PhD thesis explored processes of desistance among formerly abusive / violent men. He is presently a co-investigator in two UK research projects examining innovative systemic responses to domestic abuse perpetrators, victim/survivors and children.

Jade is a Lecturer in Criminology and Gender Violence at the University of Bristol. She is a specialist in gender-based violence and serious youth violence, as well as gender theory including studies of masculinities. Jade’s research interests include adverse childhood experiences, childhood domestic violence, on-road and gang subcultures, organised crime, masculinity theory, DVA perpetrators, feminist praxis. Her work has often centred on the intersection between masculinity, vulnerability, and violence. She is an expert in Music Elicitation as both a social research tool and an innovative way of listening and working with marginalised groups.

Jade has been working on various international research projects related to gender-based violence and masculinities, including Other Side of the Story: Perpetrators in Change, with partners in UK, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Romania, funded by the European Commission, as well as youth outreach work in Albania. Sje is on the editorial board of the Journal of Gender Based Violence. Prior to her research career Jade worked for over ten years in charities that work to end gender-based violence, in support work, policy work, and professional training. This diverse range of grassroots advocacy and activism work informs her research practice.

For the past 20 years, Iris has been leading the Counselling Line for Women and Girls (CLWG, national Helpline for victims of domestic violence and violence against women in Albania), as well as the first men's centre in Albania (Counselling Line for Men and Boys, CLMB).  CLMB works to rehabilitate perpetrators of domestic violence, does prevention work with young boys in the country, as wlel as fatherhood campaigns. She is a member of the GREVIO Working Group on a General Recommendation on the digital dimension of violence against women at CoE. 

Iris is a professor in the Department of Journalism and Communications at the University of Tirana, where she has taught for almost 25 years. She also trains Albanian journalists in human rights, journalism ethics, fake news, hate speech and sexism. Her research and publishing activities include leading a study on domestic violence and sex crimes, a guide for reporters on gender-based violence and sexual assault, guidelines for data collection and authoring two books on radio journalism and media in Albania. Iris has a PhD in Journalism and Communication and got her Master in European Studies.

Rory’s background is in criminal justice social work. Starting in 1991, he worked in the Domestic Violence Probation Project in Edinburgh, a court-mandated service for men convicted of domestic violence offences, where he was co-developer of the men’s programme. He has managed several different projects, both court-mandated and non-mandated, delivering behaviour change programmes to perpetrators with integrated women’s and children’s services.

Rory was one of the authors of the practice manuals for the Caledonian system, accredited in 2009 for rollout across Scotland. He was the head of the Caledonian national team for five years until he retired from the operational role in April 2022. He is currently working part-time as an adviser to the Caledonian system.

In 1998, he spent six months working in a community health project in Melbourne, Australia, in a non-court-mandated programme for abusive men as part of a multi-agency response to domestic abuse. He has trained and presented widely in the UK, Europe and Australia and has published several articles exploring different aspects of perpetrator work.

Jan is a social worker and frontline professional living and working in Munich, Germany. He is a board member of the Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Täterarbeit Häusliche Gewalt (BAG TäHG), the Federal Association for the Work with Perpetrators of Domestic Violence in Germany, which developed a standard for the work with perpetrators of domestic violence, endorsed by the German government. Jan´s professional background lies in the gender reflective work with boys. So his view on domestic violence as a gender-based phenomenon always includes the focus on gender-specific socialization in a patriarchal society. His aim is to promote gender equality and prevent violence against women and children. He appreciates the opportunity to work and support WWP EN on these issues at board level.

Co-opted board members

According to §12 of the WWP EN Statutes, the WWP EN Board "may appoint 2 additional members of the board if the board agrees that additional skill or expertise is required to further the mission of the organisation." These co-opted board members do not have voting rights and support the regular board members in their duties until the next AGM.

25 years ago, Katarína established the Alliance of Women in Slovakia and its daughter organization Alliance of Women, both dealing with women's human rights, especially violence against women, providing support, counselling and other services for survivors of gender based violence (GBV) and their children. Katarína is also a member of ASPEKT, the first feminist educational and publishing organization in Slovakia, which has over 25 years published more than 110 books and 21 huge anthologies on feminist topics. Having studied film and TV at the Academy of Performing Arts, Human Rights, and International Gender Research and Feminist Politics, she makes use of media to change public awareness and effect equal status for women. All of Katarína's work aims to achieve the observance of women’s human rights. She is concerned about the backlash against progress made in the field of violence against women and withdrawals of states and relevant institutions from their responsibility for GBV.