The Institute was established with a $100,000 donation from Howell Ferguson.
Dr. Sharon Maxwell was appointed as the Founding Director of the Institute.
Received first State of Florida grant: $100,000 to create “A Competency-Based Manual for Florida’s Supervised Visitation Providers”
Created “The Family Visitation Times” – The first and only newsletter for supervised visitation providers
1997
Davis Productivity Award given to Dr. Sharon Maxwell and Karen Oehme for outstanding service to taxpaying citizens
1998
Opened The Clearinghouse on Supervised Visitation, the flagship program of the Institute, directed by Karen Oehme, J.D.
1999
Created “The Bar and Bench Visitation Report” – The first and only newsletter for the legal system on supervised visitation issues
Received grant from the US Department of Justice – Office of Violence Against Women to developed DV training manuals and workshops for human service professionals such as elder services staff and WIC personnel
Developed a curriculum for family practice residents with TMRMC
2000
Published “Florida’s Domestic Violence Needs Assessment 2000”
Developed training materials and live workshops for animal abuse investigators and community mental health staff.
2001
Published the first of many law review articles on supervised visitation
Converted all DV training manuals to online tutorials available free of charge worldwide.
2002
Created “The Law Enforcement Guide to Supervised Visitation”
2003
Published “Sexual Abuse Referrals to Supervised Visitation”
Sponsored the Tallahassee Domestic Violence Coordinating Council.
Created new online tutorial funded by the US Dept of Justice, Office of Violence Against Women – “The Intersection of Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment”
2004
Published “A Toolkit for Collaboration between Florida’s Universities and Supervised Visitation Programs”
2005
Created Referrals to “Supervised Visitation Programs: A Manual for Judges” in manual and online versions. This is only the second on-line judge’s manual approved by the State Courts Administrator for continuing judicial education credit in FL.
Established an online data collection system for Florida’s supervised visitation programs.
Conducted a Pilot Program evaluation of supervised visitation services.
2006
Founding Director Dr. Sharon Maxwell retired from the University
Dr. Wendy Crook appointed Director of the Institute
Published “A Training Manual for Florida’s Supervised Visitation Programs,” issued with an accompanying CD-ROM containing Administrative Materials.
Evaluated the Intersection of Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment live trainings for FCADV with a comparison to the Institute’s online tutorial.
Evaluated the Legal Initiative on Domestic Violence for FCADV.
Conducted research on the use of emergency contraception for rape victims in Florida emergency rooms.
Three year contract awarded by DCF
Created the “E-Press,” a monthly electronic newsletter for supervised visitation providers.
2007
Published the Institute’s first social work journal article: “Characteristics of supervised visitation programs serving child maltreatment and other cases.” Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention.
The Clearinghouse received the Supervised Visitation Network’s Judith Wallach President’s Award from the Supervised Visitation network for Outstanding Service and Contribution to the Supervised Visitation Network.
Dr. Crook retires; Karen Oehme is named Institute Director.
2008
Published the Report to the Florida Legislature: Recommendations of the Supervised Visitation Standards Committee
Published Visitation Decisions in Domestic Violence Cases: Lessons from One State’s Experience, in Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender, and Society
Joined forces with law enforcement agencies throughout Florida, and developed the Law Enforcement Families Partnership, to reduce and prevent officer-involved domestic violence.
2009
Online Training – Officer-Involved Domestic Violence: A Prevention Curriculum, goes live. By 2011, over 25,000 criminal justice officers take at least one module of the Florida domestic violence curriculum.
2010
Zachary Summerlin, MSW is hired as a full-time Project Manager.
The Institute announces the development of a new project: The Alliance for Faith-Based Efforts to End Domestic Violence.
The Law Enforcement Families Partnership is awarded a Prudential-Davis Productivity Award.
The Institute receives a grant from the federal Administration for Children and Families (within the Department of Health and Human Services) to develop a pilot program aimed at enhancing child support payments in low-income families.
The Verizon Foundation supports the work of the Law Enforcement Families Partnership with a $50,000 grant.
2011
Karen Oehme is named a Florida State University “Distinguished University Scholar.”
The Institute launches a new project, entitled “Financial Literacy and Community Sustainability.”
The Law Enforcement Families Partnership is awarded another Prudential-Davis Productivity Award.
The Verizon Foundation renews its support with an additional $50,000 grant.
The Institute launches the Family Violence Journal Club within the College of Social Work and sponsors several community events to raise awareness about domestic violence.
2012
The Law Enforcement Families Partnership is awarded another Prudential-Davis Productivity Award.
The Institute signs a 3 year contract with the Department of Children and Families to fund the Clearinghouse on Supervised Visitation.
The Verizon Foundation renews its support for the Institute with an additional $50,000 grant.
The Institute completes the “Financial Literacy and Community Sustainability” project.
The Institute’s Director Karen Oehme presents on The National Toolkit on Officer-Involved Domestic Violence at the 17th Annual International Conference on Violence, Abuse, and Trauma in San Diego, CA.
2013
The Verizon Foundation supports the online Toolkit “Screening for Domestic Violence: A Training for Medical Professionals” with a $90,000 grant.
The Institute develops Florida State University’s Health Relationships Toolkit with a grant from Guy and Delores Spearman.
The Institute began producing child welfare E-Books on the protective factors that sustain healthy families.
The Institute hosts a visiting scholar, Agnes Muhongerwa, from Rwanda.
The Institute’s Director Karen Oehme presents on Screening for Domestic Violence by Medical Professionals at the 18th Annual International Conference on Violence, Abuse, and Trauma.
2014
Carly Starkey, MSW becomes the full-time Project Manager.
The Institute completes the “Screening for Domestic Violence: A Training for Medical Professionals.”
The Verizon Foundation continues its support for the Institute’s Law Enforcement Families Partnership with a $25,000 grant. More than 20,000 officers in the U. S. have now taken the national version of the online prevention training.
The Institute finishes development of the Protective Factors E-Books and trains supervised visitation programs on them.
Working with undergraduate students, the Institute launches a Social Media E Book. Our online presence is prominent.
The Institute’s Director Karen Oehme presents on New Strategies to Prevent Officer-Involved Domestic Violence at the Council of Governments Meeting in Washington, D.C.
The Institute’s Director Karen Oehme presents on Lessons from the National Prevention Toolkit on Officer-Involved Domestic Violence at the 19th Annual International Conference on Violence, Abuse, and Trauma.
2015
Thallia Malespin, MSW is hired as the new full time Project Manager.
The Institute signed a new 3-year contract with the Department of Children and Families to fund the Clearinghouse on Supervised Visitation.
The Institute welcomed former Dean of the FSU College of Social Work, Nick Mazza, Ph.D., to the Community Advisory Board.
The Institute began development of a new and updated training manual for supervised visitation providers. The manual will include 14 chapters relevant to supervised visitation.
Joining campus initiatives, the Institute has become a member of the Coordinated Community Response Team to address prevention efforts for power-based personal violence.
The Institute created a new focus on female law enforcement officers as part of the LEFP and produced “A Guide for Campus Law Enforcement Agencies: How to Recruit Female Officers.”
As part of the Women in Law Enforcement Project, The Institute has collaborated with Chief of FSUPD, David Perry, to create a recruitment video for female law enforcement officers at FSU.
The Institute launches the interdisciplinary “Successful Co-Parenting After Divorce” Toolkit project with a $250,000 gift from the Vandermark Foundation. The College of Communication and Information and the College of Education are our partners.
The “Successful Co-Parenting After Divorce” Toolkit was approved for continuing legal education credits, continuing education units for mental health professionals, and has also been approved as a parent education and family stabilization course in Florida.
The Institute partnered with the Office of Distance Learning to produce a Blackboard Training that would be available for free to all service providers. The training is titled “Understanding Domestic Violence as a Social Services Professional and provides continuing education units for mental health professionals in the state of Florida.
In 2015, Director Karen Oehme published the following: Donnelly, E., Valentine, C., & Oehme, K. (2015). Law enforcement officers and employee assistance programs. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 38(2), pp. 206 – 220. Oehme, K., Stern, N., & Mennicke, A. (2015). A deficiency in addressing campus sexual assault: The lack of women law enforcement officers. Harvard Journal of Law & Gender, 38, 401.
Karen Oehme presented at the 24th Annual Supervised Visitation Network Conference in Clearwater, FL to discuss the six protective factors to strengthen vulnerable families.
Karen Oehme presented at the End Violence Against Women International Conference on Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, and Campus Responses in New Orleans, LA to discuss officer-involved domestic violence.
2016
Kirsten Castillo, MSW, is hired as the new full-time project manager.
Ann Perko, J.D., is hired as Director of Special Projects
The Institute begins working on the Spanish version of the interdisciplinary “Successful Co-Parenting After Divorce” Toolkit project with a $100,000 gift from the Vandermark Foundation.
Karen Oehme presented at the 25th Annual Supervised Visitation Network Conference to discuss Successful Co-Parenting After Divorce.
Karen Oehme presented at the Annual Meeting of the Major Cities Chiefs Association in San Diego, CA, on Officer-Involved Domestic Violence: Effects of a Web-Based Training.
Karen Oehme presented at the meeting of the New York Chapter of the Supervised Visitation Network in Brooklyn, NY, on Protective Factors in supervised visitation.
In 2016, we published the following:
Ferraro, A., Malespin, T., Oehme, K., Bruker, M., & Opel, A. (2016). Advancing Co-parenting Education: Toward a Foundation for Supporting Positive Post-Divorce Adjustment. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, 33, 407-415. doi:10.1007/s10560-016-0440-x.
Oehme, K., Prost, S., & Saunders, D. G. (2016). Police responses to cases of officer-involved domestic violence: The effects of a brief web-based training. Policing: A Journal of Policy & Practice, 10(4), 391-407. doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/police/paw039
Donnelly, E., Oehme, K., & Melvin, R. (2016). What do EMS personnel think about domestic violence? An exploration of attitudes and experiences after participation in training. Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 38, 64-69. doi:10.1016/j.jflm.2015.11.020
Mennicke, A., Gromer, J., Oehme, K., & Macconnie, L. (2016). Workplace Experiences of Gay and Lesbian Criminal Justice Officers in the United States: A Qualitative Investigation of Officers Attending a LGBT Law Enforcement Conference. Policing and Society, 1-18. doi:10.1080/10439463.2016.1238918
Oehme, K., Stern, N., Donnelly, E., & Melvin, R. (2016). Improving the emergency medical services system’s response to domestic violence. Health Matrix: The Journal of Law and Medicine, 26(1), 173-204. Retrieved from http://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/healthmatrix/vol26/iss1/9
Saunders, D., Prost, S., & Oehme, K. (2016). Responses to Cases of Officer Domestic Violence: Effects of Demographic and Professional Factors. Journal of Family Violence, 31(6), 771-784. doi:10.1007/s10896-016-9822-2
Stern, M., Oehme, K., & Stern, N. (2016). A test to identify and remedy anti-gay bias in child custody decisions after Obergefell. UCLA Women’s Law Journal, 23(2), 79-100. Retrieved from http://escholarship.org/uc/item/3qs5h050
Oehme, K., & Prost, S. (2016). Preventing Officer-Involved Domestic Violence: Leadership Challenges and Opportunities. In R.J. Burke (Ed.), Stress in Policing: Sources, Consequences and Interventions. Gower Publishers: UK.
Oehme, K., & Ferraro, A. (2016, November). Successful Co-Parenting After Divorce: FSU’s New Research and Service Project. FLAFCC Newsletter, 2-3.
2017
Kirsten Castillo, MSW, gave a presentation on the effects of childhood trauma on children’s development at Brehon House- a maternity home for pregnant women experiencing homelessness.
Morgan Lodes is hired as the new full-time project manager.
The Successful Co-Parenting After Divorce toolkit is awarded a Prudential-Davis Productivity Award.
The Institute completed work on the new and updated Training Manual for Supervised Visitation Providers.
In 2017, as part of the LGBTQ Family Life Project, the Institute team developed a dataset of high school student attitudes about violence against transgender individuals. We used content analysis on a national set of online U.S. student newspapers.
The Institute added new components to the National Prevention Toolkit based on our data analysis. The new additions include information on how officers identify the primary aggressor, resources for police chaplains, the issue of couples counseling in domestic violence cases, and evidence that the toolkit training works.
As part of our Family Violence Journal Club, we had guest speaker, Mark Stern from Slate Magazine, to discuss issues related to the current climate around the LGBTQ+ community.
Karen Oehme presented at the 26th Annual Supervised Visitation Network Conference in San Antonio, Texas, on the Moral Foundation Theory and Promoting Supervised Visitation Services.
Director, Karen Oehme, and Dr. Anthony Ferraro traveled to Tokyo in August. They met with faculty from Tokyo International University to discuss a Japanese version of the Successful Co-Parenting After Divorce Toolkit.
The Institute began development of a new training manual for supervised visitation providers on the issue of child sexual abuse.
The Florida Office of the Attorney General awarded the Institute a $25,000 grant in 2017 to develop a new human trafficking component for EMS professionals on The National Toolkit on Domestic Violence for Medical Professionals.
The recent article accepted by Stanford Law & Policy Review, The Judicial and Generational Dispute over Transgender Rights, has garnered special recognition from research networks. The Women’s & Gender Research Network (WGSRN), a research network of the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), selected this article to be included in the launch of WGSRN as part of the Women & Law eJournal.
Karen Oehme along with other members of the Leon County Domestic Violence Fatality Review Team was awarded the 2017 Community Service Award by the local domestic violence and sexual violence center, Refuge House.
In 2017, we published the following:
Harrison, S., Oehme, K., Maselli, E., Blackenship, L., & Onifade, E. (2017). Domestic Violence Screening: A National Hotline Survey. Family & Intimate Partner Violence Quarterly, 9(4), 7-19.
Karen Oehme (2017): Florida State University’s Institute for Family Violence Studies, Journal of Evidence-Informed Social Work, DOI: 10.1080/23761407.2017.1403404
Oehme, K., Ferraro, A. J., Stern, N., Panisch, L. S., & Lucier-Greer, M. (2017). Trauma-Informed Co-Parenting: How a Shift in Compulsory Divorce Education to Reflect New Brain Development Research Can Promote Both Parents’ and Children’s Best Interests. University of Hawaii Law Review, 39(37), 1-10.
Stern, M., Oehme, K., Stern, N., Urbach, E., Simonsen, E., & Garcia, A. (in press). The Judicial and Generational Dispute over Transgender Rights. Stanford Law & Policy Review, 32 pages.
2018
In 2018, the Florida Office of the Attorney General awarded the Institute a $25,000 grant to develop a new component about human trafficking for the National Prevention Toolkit on Officer-Involved Domestic Violence. The Institute launched this new training on May 1, 2018.
Karen Oehme presented on A Strength-Based Approach to Supervised Visitation at the 27th Annual Supervised Visitation Network conference in May 2018.
The Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) accepted Karen Oehme and Anthony Ferraro’s conference workshop proposal, Elephant in the Room: ACEs and Improving the Response to Divorcing Coparents. They presented at the AFCC’s 55th Annual Conference, Compassionate Family Court Systems: The Role of Trauma-Informed Jurisprudence, in Washington DC on June 6-9, 2018.
Perko, A., & Oehme, K. (in press). Officers’ Childhood Trauma Histories: Understanding the Impact, and Opportunities for Resilience. In Leonard Territo, & James D. Sewell (Eds.), Stress Management in Law Enforcement, 4th Edition. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.
IFVS launched the “Summer Dose” of the FSU Student Resilience Project in August 2018.
Prost, S. G., Saunders, D. G., & Oehme, K. (submitted). Childhood Trauma and Police Officers' Responses to Officer-Involved Domestic Violence: Officers' Resolved Trauma Related to Helping Victim. Manuscript submitted for publication.
The Center for Social Concerns accepted the Institute’s conference workshop proposal on Resilience and the Developing Brain: Opportunities for Working with College Students. Oehme presented at the Poverty & Stress Workshop at the University of Notre Dame on October 29, 2018.
The University of Michigan Depression on College Campuses Conference accepted the Institute’s presentation proposal: A Trauma Informed Approach to Building College Student Resilience. Ann Perko, Director of Policy and Special Projects, will be presenting at the conference in March 2019.
Harvard University’s “The Resilience Consortium” accepted the Institute’s presentation proposal, The FSU Student Resilience Project, for the Symposium on Academic Resilience in Higher Education. Oehme presented at The University of Pennsylvania in November 2018.
The National Consortium for Building Healthy Academic Communities accepted the Institute’s abstract titled Student Resilience, Belonging and Community, for oral presentation at the National Summit on Building Cultures of Well-Being. Lyndi Bradley, Project Coordinator, will be presenting at the summit at Ohio State University in May 2019.
In November, after receiving interest in the FSU Student Resilience Project from across the country, and internationally, the Institute hosted a webinar on FSU’s Student Resilience Campaign Toolkit: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Building Student Resilience. Over 70 college and universities attended the webinar.
2019
The American Association of University Administrators awarded the FSU Resilience Project the 2019 John Blackburn award. This award is given to successful projects that address common problems in higher education. Karen Oehme will be accepting the award and giving a brief presentation on Resilience in June, 2019.
