The Domestic Abuse Conference Bristol 2022

The Domestic Abuse Conference Bristol 2022 is a multi-agency conference designed to provide information, advice and inspiration to a wide range of professionals who regularly encounter and deal with domestic abuse.

A varied and stellar speaker list will educate and provide delegates with an insight into a vast array of professional practices relating to domestic abuse.

Solicitors, barristers, social workers, NHS workers, police, charities, local authorities, colleges and universities, school employees and housing associations will benefit from this full day of various speakers.

It is also an excellent opportunity to network and make new contacts.

Lunch and afternoon refreshments are fully included in the ticket price.

Speakers for this year’s conference include:

Mark Shelford was elected as the Police and Crime Commissioner for Avon and Somerset in May 2021.

Mark spent over 30 years as an Army Officer and served alongside police across the globe, gaining an understanding of their role and sharing the risks they faced. As a result, Mark has a good understanding of service life and the pressures those protecting communities and people face. Mark hopes to bring the skills he developed and experience of working in diverse communities to Avon and Somerset to make the force area a safer place for all.

In his role as PCC, Mark will be focusing on delivering a more efficient and effective police service and ensuring his office and Avon and Somerset Police are reassuring, refocusing and rebuilding a safer community across the force area.

Jasvinder, a survivor of forced marriage, is the founder of Karma Nirvana, a national award winning charity that supports both men and women affected by honour based abuse and forced marriages. She is a highly acclaimed international speaker and an expert advisor to the courts in matters of child, civil and criminal proceedings, is a chair of domestic homicide reviews and was instrumental in ensuring that all UK police forces are required to improve their understanding of honour based abuse and forced marriage by inspections conducted by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary.

Her memoir ‘Shame’ was a Times Top 10 Bestseller and described in the House of Lords as a ‘political weapon’. Jasvinder is recognised as bringing the issue of forced marriage into the public domain and Prime Minister David Cameron stated that her work ‘turned my head on the issue of forced marriage’. Her work is recognised as being pivotal to the creation of a specific UK forced marriage criminal offence in 2014. Her successful claim of sexual harassment against a peer in the House of Lords was the first in its 479 year history and has already led to an increase in reporting and resulted in significant changes in the House of Lords policy and practice including greater debates and reforms, resulting in a House of Lords independent inquiry into sexual harassment and bullying.

David Challen is a domestic abuse campaigner and keynote speaker. He successfully campaigned to free his mother Sally Challen from Pr*son in a landmark appeal recognising the lifetime of coercive control she suffered in February 2019.

David continues to speak out against violence against women, coercive control and recognising women's experiences in the criminal justice system. His work has been published by The Telegraph, The Times, and The Guardian.

David is a Pr*son Advice and Care Trust Ambassador (PACT) and a Supporter of the National Centre For Domestic Violence.

Emma is the Senior Tech Abuse Manager at Refuge. Refuge's tech abuse and empowerment team supports women who have had technology used against them as a weapon of domestic abuse. They empower survivors so they can use technology positively and safely and take back control of their lives.

Refuge's frontline staff are increasingly seeing the use of technology by perpetrators to stalk, harass, abuse and control their victims. As of January 2019, more than 2,500 of their clients reported experiences of technology-facilitated abuse. Tech abuse is often experienced as part of a pattern of controlling behaviour by the abuser: many survivors experience tech abuse in addition to direct domestic abuse such as physical violence, sexual and emotional abuse.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Watershed, 1 Canon's Road, Bristol, United Kingdom