join us for the 15th symposium on family violence. our theme this year is...

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 Understanding Coercive Control to Better Assess IPV  

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Dr. Carmen Gill is a professor at the University of New Brunswick in the Department of Sociology. Dr. Carmen Gill works with police agencies in Canada. Her research focuses on police intervention in coercive control in intimate partner violence (IPV) situations, domestic homicide and the treatment of perpetrators and victims through the criminal justice system. Dr. Carmen Gill is currently developing training on coercive control for police agencies. She led the development of a National Framework for Police Intervention in Intimate Partner Coercive control in partnership with the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP). She is a member of the Crime Prevention, Wellbeing and Community Safety at CACP, the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee in NB and the Academic Advisory Circle of the Office of the Federal Ombudsperson for Victims of Crime. 

 Panel: Family Violence After Ahluwalia: Implications for Your Practice and the Path Forward 

Geoffrey Carpenter is lawyer, mediator, arbitrator and parenting coordinator. He is certified as a specialist in family law by the Law Society of Ontario, and serves as a Dispute Resolution Officer hearing Family Case Conferences in the Superior Court of Justice.

Outside of his practice, he is the former Chair of the Ontario Bar Association’s Family Law Section, as well as the Child and Youth Law Section. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at Osgoode Hall, and previously taught at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law.

Geoffrey was counsel for the husband in Ahluwalia at the Ontario Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Canada.

 Panel: Family Violence After Ahluwalia: Implications for Your Practice and the Path Forward

Julie Hannaford, M.A. (Toronto), LLB (Toronto) was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1985. Julie is a trial lawyer who founded J K Hannaford Barristers in July 2006. J K Hannaford Barristers serves clients in family law. Julie is currently the Trial Advocacy Course Chair at the U of T Faculty of Law. An esteemed educator, Julie has taught at the Osgoode Hall Law School in the Trial Practice course, as well as at the National Institute of Trial Advocacy in their advocacy training programmes at Minneapolis, Dallas, and Boulder, and in their faculty training programmes held at Notre Dame University and Harvard University. She has been invited faculty/team leader in the Trial Advocacy course at Louisiana State University Law School, and has chaired and taught in courses on advocacy and trial practice for the Advocate’s Society, the LSUC, and the CBA (Ontario). Julie has contributed in the community by serving as Director of Empire Club of Canada, Bloorview Children’s Hospital, Bloorview MacMillan Centre, and Bloorview Children’s Hospital Foundation. Julie has been recognised by Best Lawyers in the field of family law.

  The Intersection of Hi-Tech Stalking in Intimate Partner Violence and Family Matters  

Miri Harsonsky is the Canadian Professional Liaison for OurFamilyWizard, where she works closely with family law professionals, mediators, parenting coordinators, and other professionals supporting separated and divorced families. Her work focuses on education and training within the family law and family dispute resolution communities, with a particular interest in how technology can support families while also recognizing the challenges it can present in situations involving high-conflict, intimate partner violence, and technology-facilitated abuse.

  A Child's Perspective: When Coercive Control Shapes Family Life and  Children’s Experiences 

Janet MacQuarrie (MEd, RP, Clinical Member OSRP) (she/her) is a Clinical Manager at York Hills Centre for Children, Youth and Families. She brings expertise in play therapy, birth-to-six mental health, early relational health, and family systems, including the ways conflict and other stressors affect children and families. Her work recognizes how diversity, racism, and marginalization shape families’ experiences of care. Janet embeds equity, family engagement, and collaborative practice in her approach to treatment planning and community mental health. She is a certified Theraplay® Therapist and trainer.

  Panel: Family Violence After Ahluwalia: Implications for Your Practice and the Path Forward

Angela Pagano is a partner at J K Hannaford Barristers. She was called to the Ontario Bar in 2019. Angela holds a Bachelor of Arts in Honours Psychology from York University and is a graduate of the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law (JD Class of 2018). During her studies, Angela was a caseworker with Downtown Legal Services and an active participant in the Faculty of Law’s Competitive Mooting Program. She was a member of the Best Overall Team at the 2017 Walsh Family Law Moot, and received the award for Best Overall Advocate at the 2018 Sopinka Cup. Hailing from an arts background, Angela spent many years performing in musicals on stages across Canada before shifting her focus to law.

  Message from the Executive Director of the OAFM

Mary-Anne Popescu, AccFM, AccIM, CPMed, is the Executive Director of the Ontario Association for Family Mediation (OAFM), a family mediator and educator with a longstanding commitment to accessible and effective family dispute resolution.

Mary-Anne teaches in York University’s Family Mediation Certificate Program and is a contributing author to Living Together, Separating, Divorcing and the Family Dispute Resolution Handbook. She is also co-author of HELP-M, an adaptation of the Department of Justice Canada’s HELP Toolkit developed to support family mediators in identifying and responding to family violence, coercive control, power imbalance, and safety concerns throughout the mediation process.

With a background in social services and extensive experience in family mediation, Mary-Anne’s work focuses on strengthening mediation practice, improving access to family justice, and advancing trauma-informed, inclusive, and child-focused approaches to dispute resolution. Her longstanding commitment to inclusion and allyship includes six years as a volunteer with Toronto PFLAG from 2012 to 2018.

Mary-Anne completed the Yale Women’s Leadership Program in 2024 and is currently completing an LL.M. in Alternative Dispute Resolution at Osgoode Hall Law School.

  The Power of Words: Coercive Control and the Language of Silence

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Preeya Rateja has never experienced justice from only one side of the table.

As a racialized woman raised at the intersection of cultures and communities, she knows what it feels like to navigate systems that were not always designed with people like her in mind — and she has spent more than twenty-five years working within those very systems to help change that. It started as a child victim of sexual violence at the age of eight, with repeated experiences of sexual violence, both reported and unreported throughout her life. Her experience of intimate partner violence was similar, which included reported and unreported instances. Coercive control was key to her experiences. It was the Power of Words that often kept her Silent. 

Her professional experience spans policing oversight, corrections (institutional and community), victim services, child witness preparation, court administration, youth justice and public policy. She also served as a Reservist with the Canadian Armed Forces for over six years. She was often experiencing different forms of violence while working in the system.

Her keynote is a challenge to action by a Warrior Woman. It is an invitation to the audience — to sit with the complexity of what justice looks and feels like for the people we serve, and to ask harder, better questions about how we can do it differently, with purpose and intention.

Preeya holds a Bachelor of Arts Honours degree in Criminology and Sociology from the University of Toronto. She also holds a masters degree in public policy administration and law, and a graduate diploma in Justice Administration from York University. 

  A Child's Perspective: When Coercive Control Shapes Family Life and  Children’s Experiences 

Erin Thornton (MSW, RSW) (she/her) is a Clinical Manager with York Hills Centre for Children, Youth, and Families, bringing 20 years of experience in children’s mental health. Her practice is rooted in trauma-informed and family systems perspectives, with a strong commitment to evidence-based therapeutic approaches and to understanding the complex interplay between individual experiences, relationships, and behaviour. She is passionate about supporting children, youth, and families navigating adversity and complex circumstances, and has extensive experience partnering with professionals and systems to strengthen understanding of trauma and adverse childhood experiences. Her work reflects a compassionate, collaborative, and systemic approach, with an emphasis on fostering connection, enhancing relational understanding, and creating meaningful pathways toward change.

Message from the Executive Director of PFMS

Mina Vaish is the Executive Director of PFMS, the court-connected mediation service provider for Peel, Dufferin and York Regions which represents 2.6 million residents of the GTA. She is a strong advocate for the benefits of family mediation in certain situations and of the team of talented and skilled roster members at PFMS.
 

Mina has a Master of Laws from Osgoode Hall Law School (Toronto) with a specialization in dispute  resolution.  She trains and mentors mediators internationally, nationally and locally in mediation, conflict resolution and prevention and peacebuilding.

She is active in international and national/local mediation efforts, including capacity and skills building, and advocacy for mediation and other processes in United Nations and multilateral contexts. She is the current co-chair of the Private Sector Partnerships for Peace for Mediators Beyond Borders International.

She serves on many boards, panels and events internationally including past keynote speaker at Harvard Women's Empowerment (WE) and  MBBI delegation chair to the UN Commission on the Status of Women for 8 years.