KELLY DUNNE

Kelly Dunne is the Associate Director of the Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center located in Newburyport Massachusetts. Kelly has designed and implemented domestic violence trainings for the Executive Office of Public Safety and the Massachusetts Office of the Commissioner of Probation.   In the last five years her work has focused on  the civil liberty rights of battered women and examining the systems set up to protect victims.

She created the High Risk Response Team model after an analysis of a tragic domestic violence homicide. This model provides a framework for a community response in the most dangerous domestic violence cases. This model has received two national awards, the National Network to End Domestic Violence   Spirit of Advocacy Award in 2007 and a 2008 Mary Byron Celebrating Solutions Award. The model has been replicated in thirteen communities in Massachusetts.

 Kelly published an article on the project in the Domestic Violence Report (Dunne and Chadwick (2007), “Redefining Safety,” 12-4). 

Kelly now acts as a consultant assisting and providing training for  communities in successfully implementing the High Risk Response Team Model.  She has presented on the issue of risk assessment and community response at Harvard Law School and the   International Conference of Violence Abuse and Trauma.

She was named a 2006 Community Heroine by the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women.