This is the first instalment of the VAWGRN 2021 webinar series. Find us on Twitter @VAWGRN and on www.vawgnetwork.mdx.ac.uk.

Facilitator: Miranda Horvath, Middlesex University

Panelists:

Fiona Vera-Gray is an activist, researcher, and campaigner working on violence against women and girls. She comes from a practice-based background in the specialist sexual violence sector, and this informs her academic work which focuses on drawing together philosophy, specifically phenomenology, with empirical research on violence against women and girls. She is a regular media commentator on sexual violence and harassment and have been an expert advisor to Government including to the Women and Equalities Committee Inquiry into Public Sexual Harassment, and the Department for Education in the development of the new RSHE curriculum.

Ava Kanyeredzi teaches on the BSc and MSc Forensic Psychology and Clinical and Community Psychology. Her work draws on intersectional feminist, critical and community psychology approaches, where she uses visual, participatory and action research methods with a keen interest and passion to work with people from groups who are under-researched or marginalised. She has a strong track record of working in partnership with health service and third sector organisations, to lead and develop robust, effective and impactful research projects. She is currently the research and evaluation lead for the Black Church Domestic Abuse Forum (BCDAF www.bcdaf.org.uk) an interdisciplinary collaboration of academics, practitioners and faith leaders aiming to support church communities to better respond to domestic abuse.

Liz Kelly is a professor of sexualised violence and she is also director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU) and holds the Roddick Chair on Violence Against Women. Liz has been active in the field of violence against women and children for 40 years. She is the author of Surviving Sexual Violence, which established the concept of a 'continuum of violence' and over 100 book chapters and journal articles. In 2000, Liz was awarded a CBE in the New Years Honours List for 'services combating violence against women and children'. As a result of her important work in the field, in January 2005 Liz was appointed to the Board of Commissioners of the Women's National Commission.