Moderator:
Gabriela Zapata-Alma, LCSW, CADC, is the Associate Director of the National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma, and Mental Health, as well as faculty at the University of Chicago, where they direct the Alcohol and Other Drug Counselor Training Program within the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. Gabriela brings over 15 years of experience supporting people impacted by structural and interpersonal violence through evidence-based clinical, housing, resource advocacy, and HIV integrated care programs. Currently, Gabriela authors best practices, leads national capacity-building efforts, and provides trauma-informed policy consultation to advance health equity and social justice.
Panelists:
Belinda J. Stiles, LCSW, currently serves as the Director of Integrative Behavioral Health Services at Howard Brown Health. Much of her background has been providing direct clinical services to youth, adults, and families growing through anxiety, depression, school-related behavioral issues, substance use, trauma, and life transitions around health diagnoses and self-identity. In recent years she’s worked as an administrator who focuses on bringing the voices of front-line team members to the decision-making process on an executive level. She also facilitates trainings on mental health and substance issues.
Bonnie Violet is a trans femme genderqueer spiritual drag artist and digital chaplain. YouTuber, Twitcher, and Host of a queer chaplain podcast with such series as Drag & Spirituality, TranSpirit, and Faith Leaders. Co-host of Splintered Grace with her conservative Christian aunt and At the CCC recovery podcast. Bonnie shares her experience of strength and hope with HIV, recovering from drugs, alcohol, and sexual assault among other things in classrooms, community centers, churches, online and pretty much anywhere they’ll let her. As a queer chaplain, she is present with people in death and dying to self by helping to lace one’s narrative with a spiritual thread to remind one of their resilience, strengthen faith in self, and create serenity in the now.
Janette Garcia has worked at Haven Women’s Center of Stanislaus for over 24 years, providing services to people impacted by domestic or sexual violence. She is currently the Training Manager at Haven. She facilitates support groups in treatment centers focusing on the connection between substance use and trauma. Janette has 29 years clean and sober. Spiritually is at the core of her recovery and healing.
Karen Tronsgard-Scott is working toward a world in which all people thrive. Currently she is focused on building solidarity with others who live to end violence across social spectrums with a focus on gender-based violence. Ms. Tronsgard-Scott has worked in the field since 1995, first at Tri-County Help Center in Ohio, and since 2007 at the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, where she is the Executive Director. In 2020, Tronsgard-Scott joined the Masters in Restorative Justice Program at the Vermont Law School, where she teaches a course focused on domestic and sexual violence responses. She has been privileged to have worked with organizations and coalitions in the movement to end gender-based violence throughout the United States and Europe. Ms. Tronsgard-Scott is Movement Maker and alumna of Move to End Violence, a 10-year project designed to create new approaches to addressing gender-based violence. Her work allows her to deeply explore the synergies that arise when people join together in community, when organizations adopt transformative practices, and when organizations and people actively engage in power sharing and trauma healing.