Insight Exchange Team
Founding Collaborators
Launched in November 2017, Insight Exchange was designed by Domestic Violence Service Management (DVSM), in collaboration with Dr Linda Coates and Dr Allan Wade from Centre for Response-Based Practice Canada.
Director, Insight Exchange
- Sal Dennis
Associates (regular) (see bios below)
- Dr Leticia Funston
- Louise Whelan
- Danielle Allen
- Luke Addinsall
- Dr Linda Coates
- Arely Carrion
- Kaylene Edson
- Dr Skye Charry
- Dr Tania Solorio
- Andrea Salamanca
Associates (sessions)
Includes the people listed above and the following guest Associates.
- Rebecca Glenn | Founder of Centre for Women's Economic Safety (former Assistant Director of Insight Exchange)
- Corina Backhouse | NSW Health prevention and response to violence, abuse and neglect policy and programs
- Marisa Moliterno | Program Manager, Miranda Project and Pathways Home, Community Restorative Centre
- Kelly-Anne Stewart | Principal Advisor Women Offenders, Corrections Strategy & Executive Services (DCJ CSNSW)
Associates - Reflections
Reflections from the bi-monthly Associate initiative are shared in ‘Who benefits from keeping us apart?’ A collection of reflections from Insight Exchange Associates FY20/21.
In 2022 we continue to meet bi-monthly to exchange insights across diverse disciplines of work. The group includes the Insight Exchange Team, Associates, Supporters and Collaborators:
Thanks
Insight Exchange would not be what it is today without the input of former Assistant Director Rebecca Glenn (founder of Centre for Women's Economic Safety) and the engagement, support and expertise of others who have contributed since it's inception. The work is enriched by all who generously participate to share their lived experience insights, as well as Associate colleagues, collaborators, in-kind supporters, individual contributors, and donors. The industry specialists and suppliers we work with also make meaningful contributions through their skilled expertise and in various forms of in-kind donation to take the work forward.
Meet the Insight Exchange Team
Sal Dennis
Director - Insight Exchange
Sal has worked in strategy and development roles in human services in London and Sydney. She has been advancing the depth and breadth of DVSM’s work including the design and establishment of Insight Exchange to inform social, service and systemic responses to domestic and family violence.
Insight Exchange has growing engagement within Australia and abroad supporting a range of sectors across the response continuum including corporates, community, health, government, specialist and statutory services. In 2020, the NSW State Coroners Domestic Violence Death Review Team Report 2017 – 2019 spoke to the value and importance of DVSM’s Insight Exchange work ‘in reframing safety planning as victim-centred and considers that this approach to safety planning should form part of all domestic violence training’. Sal is a member of the NSW Attorney Generals Domestic and Family Violence and Sexual Assault Council.
Sal is known for her strategic and purposeful approach to working with others, creating common ground amongst stakeholders with differing goals and motivations. Sal’s legacy is in developing the leadership of others and distilling clear ways to understand and make progress through complexity. Sal is passionate about connecting people to people, people to ideas, and ideas to ideas.
Dr Leticia Funston
Associate | Independent academic, researcher and participant interviewer
Dr Leticia Funston currently lives and works on the stolen and unceded lands of the Bidjigal peoples of Eora Nation and Burramattagal peoples of Darug Nation. Leticia is inspired by First Nations Worldviews, anti-colonial resistance, queer theories, intersectional feminism and Response Based Practice. She aims to “walk the talk” in her work as a qualified social worker (Bachelor of Social Work, Honours 1, Sydney University) and as a social researcher (Bachelor of Arts in Communications, Social Inquiry, University of Technology Sydney).
Leticia completed her PhD degree under the supervision of Dr Lesley Laing and Dr Margot Rawsthorne with the Education and Social Work Faculty at Sydney University. Leticia’s thesis, In the Business of Trauma: An intersectional-materialist feminist analysis of ‘trauma informed’ women’s refuges and crisis accommodation services in Sydney and Vancouver (2019), considers the capacity for human services to provide care and to respond to gendered violence and housing injustice under the constraints imposed by settler-colonialism and neoliberalism.
Louise Whelan | Collaborating Artist
In September 2020 we commenced collaboration with award winning artist Louise Whelan.
Louise is a visual artist with photo-media base. Her multidisciplinary approach spans photo-media, projection, video art, public, installation and curation. Much of her practice draws inspiration from environmental and humanitarian issues, and her interest in the aesthetics of memory.
Louise is widely published and exhibited. She photographs for the state libraries of NSW, WA and the National Library of Australia. Louise has more than 30 national and international awards to her name.
Louise complements her photographic works with the State Library of NSW in the oral history discipline. The UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Committee has collected some of her oral histories as a documentary heritage to the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register.
Explore Louise Whelan's original works in the Insight Exchange Arts Lab Collection
Explore Louise Whelan's Portfolio at https://australiansall.photoshelter.com/about
Danielle Allen
Associate | Understanding and responding to strangulation
Danielle has worked in a diverse range of health and education settings in metropolitan, regional and rural areas in NSW. She has extensive experience in counselling, group work, advocacy, training, project and community development roles in the domestic, family and sexual violence in the women’s and children’s’ health sector.
She currently lives on unceded Wiradjuri lands. Danielle has previously been involved with service improvement projects with the Western NSW Local Health District Prevention and Response to Violence Abuse and Neglect Service. She is conducting research investigating best practice responses in the area of non-fatal strangulation.
Danielle is committed to centring the voices of people with lived experience in building the knowledge and capacity of social and sector responders through education and training. This training has been delivered through NAPCAN, NSW TAFE and NSW Health staff with a focus on reflective, integrated practice and service delivery with a strong focus on interpersonal family violence.
Danielle holds a Bachelor of Social Work (University of Sydney Hons 2), Graduate Diploma in Education (University of Sydney) and a Bachelor of Arts (Majors in Fine Arts and Psychology), (University of Sydney).
Danielle was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship to explore collaborative responses to victims of interpersonal violence who have experienced non-fatal strangulation and traumatic brain injury in the USA and Canada. Read the report here Churchill Fellowship project and report
Luke Addinsall
Associate - Insight Exchange
Luke is a Qualified and accredited Mental Health Social Worker and Counsellor with extensive experience in working with men who use violence. He has worked for over 20 years in the social sector across Government departments, specialist services, private practice, and as a consultant and individual and group supervisor.
Luke’s practice has primarily involved working with men in counselling and in men's group programs. He's recently completed his term as co-chair of the NSW Men's Behaviour Change Network. He has also engaged as a Specialist Consultant, as a member of No to Violence' NSW Expert Panel for Men's Behaviour Change and member of the DVNSW Policy and Advisory Committee as a specialist in working with men who use violence. Luke has also contributed to training the sector, at TAFE's, with NSW Education Centre Against Violence (ECAV) and various other consultancy roles for registered training organisations (RTO's).
Luke's brings an eclectic approach and understanding to the work from the various therapeutic modalities he's been trained in, including: Acceptance & Commitment Therapy, Narrative Therapy, and Psycho-somatic psychotherapy.
Prior to starting with Insight Exchange Luke was the manager of the Men & Family Centre. An organisation that specialises in collaborative, respectful whole-of-family responses to domestic and family violence.
Dr Linda Coates
Associate | Language Lab & Language and evidence
Dr. Linda Coates is works in the department of Psychology at Okanagan College. She is a developer of Response-Based Practice and a co-founder of the Centre for Response-Based Practice. Her work emphasises critical analysis and application. She has published and presented on topics related to violence, social interaction, and language.
Linda is particularly interested in social responses to violence and applying Response-Based ideas in a wide variety of settings including therapy, medicine, policing, criminal law, family law, education, and the media.
Linda has conducted studies in various settings (e.g., criminal law, the media, family law) which demonstrate how language can be used to conceal violence, mitigate perpetrators' responsibility, blame victims, and conceal victim resistance. She has also shown how language can be used to do the opposite: to reveal violence, clarify responsibility, uncover victim resistance, and undercut victim blaming. She pioneered the use of the term "unilateral" to describe violent interactions, and "mutualizing" to describe how those unilateral violent actions are misrepresented as mutual.
Linda offers advising, training, supervision, document and policy analysis, and expert opinions and reports.
Linda has a particular interest in working in rural and farming communities.
Arely Carrion
Associate | Clubs Industry Responses
Arely is known for her authenticity and passion to support employees, members, and community.
Arely has extensive business expertise within the Clubs industry, managing venues in senior operational roles at Harbord Diggers & Manly Bowling Club for the Mounties Group and at Hurstville & Menai for the Club Central Group. She has also worked alongside multiple venues across NSW as a Business Partnership Manager for Max Performance Solutions (Tabcorp).
Arely has been a champion of Insight Exchange since 2018, and in Nov 2021 she stepped out of employment in the clubs industry to take up a 12m Associates role designed to support communities who may not be connected to information and supports outside of their club workplace or membership. In this time Arely has met with hundreds of people working in the industry, from executives to part-time casuals, suppliers, sharing the urgent and vital work of improving understanding and responses to domestic, family and sexualised violence.
From Nov 2022 Arely is continuing in Insight Exchange Associate work 1 day a week and returning to employment within the clubs industry. Her Insight Exchange work will involve leading a network from the clubs’ industry to embed the ideas and resources and supporting the broader work of Insight Exchange to support responders across the ecosystem.
Kaylene Edson
Associate | Workplace responses
Kaylene is an experienced Diversity & Inclusion and Health & Safety professional passionate about workplace and business responses to domestic, family and sexualised violence (DFSV). Kaylene’s Associate work has evolved from being an industry stakeholder, to donating in-kind hours to support the work, and in 2022 she commenced dedicated work focused on the intersection of workplace and employee assistance programs as responders.
Previously, as Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging consultant for CSIRO , Kaylene was able to take the Insight Exchange Workplace Kit (Insights Paper, Follow My Lead and My Safety Kit) to develop the organisations workplace response to domestic family violence and abuse. She has led the application of Insight Exchange ideas into the workplace, directly shaping what gets valued and who gets heard.
Kaylene has first-hand experience in the urgent yet careful work of establishing listening mechanisms, shaping language, policy, response processes and communication priorities that centre on and from peoples lived-expertise. She continues to work with CSIRO, provides skilled support to community-based initiatives, and works as regular and valued Associate in the Insight Exchange team.
Dr Skye Charry
Associate | Understanding and responding to sexual harassment
Associate Professor Charry has practiced, researched, advocated and consulted on issues of workplace sex discrimination for more than 15 years. Her pioneering work 'Whispers from the Bush- The Workplace Sexual Harassment of Australian Rural Women’' (2015) situated the complexities of sexual harassment in rural workplaces on the national agenda. The Victorian Women's Trust recently produced a short documentary film called 'Grace Under Fire' based on Skye's research. Skye has thrice been invited as a delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women with the YWCA Australia and was also recently awarded the Chancellor’s Distinguished Young Alumni Award (University of Canberra). Skye consults widely for government and industry on sex discrimination matters in industry including meat, forestry and agriculture. Skye is an Honorary Associate Professor at the Australian National University College of Law and is the Deputy Chair of the ACT Ministerial Advisory Council for Women. Former Chief of Army, Lt Gen David Morrison observed: ‘Through her work, Skye Saunders has opened a lens on an aspect of our Australian community that has received too little attention up until now. Indeed, this is an area that clearly needs further attention and funding.’
Together with Insight Exchange colleagues and stakeholders the role will serve to build on a shared understanding of and insight-informed responses to sexual harassment (SH). The role will be informed by, draw from, and evolve the existing good work in place in an effort to uplift responses to sexual harassment. Read more about the work Skye has undertaken in the following:
Mexico Development Project
Insight Exchange Associates (Mexico)
- Dr Tania Solorio
- Andrea Salamanca
Open the set of resources developed via the dedicated Español landing page.
Insight Exchange International Advisory Group
The international advisory group exists to support the Mexico Development Project.
The team includes:
Dr Shelly Dean - Member of Centre for Response Based Practice (Canada) and Manager of Response-Based Practice Interior (Canada)
Kel Forrest - Certificated in Response-Based Practice & Member of Response-Based Practice Aotearoa (RPBA) (New Zealand)
Kimberly Chiswell - Certificated in Response-Based Practice & Program Manager within an Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation and Lecturer in Social Work (UoW) (Australia)
Dr Tania Aguirre Solorio
Associate | Understanding and responding to DFSV - (Mexico City / Spanish readers)
Tania has 13 years of experience working with individuals and couples. At the core of Tania´s practice is the acknowledgment of people’s preexisting abilities for safety and dignity. She focuses on bringing forward people’s everyday responses to dilemmas and oppression which upholds dignity, responses, and safety. Her work is very influenced by antiracist and anticolonial theories and practices.
Her area of concentration includes working for individuals who have experienced violence in any form. She also works with couples and the diverse challenges they experience at different moments in their relationship; particularly, she is very interested to be part of conversations around sexuality that challenge normative and colonial ideas exploring instead the actual interactions that create the experience of sex in people´s lives. Her work contrasts academic notions that fail to explore and understand personal, relational, and contextual meanings and practices of sex and sexuality.
Tania wholeheartedly believes that every person, institution, group, community and so on, are social responders and that their responses are crucial for the ongoing creation of social and personal safety and dignity.
Her academic research centers on the exploration of resistance, sexuality, and bodily experiences as intentional ethical responses for safety and dignity. She is the founder of ECOS: Prácticas-Basadas-en-la-Respuesta which seeks to bring Response-Based-Practice ideas to the Mexican and Latin American contexts. She has a private practice in México where she was born and raised, and where she currently lives. Tania has a Master’s Degree in Family Therapy, is Certified in Response Based Practice, and has a Doctoral Degree in Women and Gender Studies.
Andrea Salamanca
Associate | Understanding and responding to DFSV - (Mexico City / Spanish readers)
Andrea is a content producer and single mama to J, based in the Mexico City suburbs.
Andrea holds a BA in Film & TV from CENTRO (Mexico City) and has experience producing Films and Advertising: Film, Photo, and Radio, from Agency to Fieldwork. She has worked with major fashion brands like El Palacio de Hierro and major studios like Lemon Films, also documentaries with the Women’s Gender Studies Program at National University about women in prison and Article 19 about journalists’ lives being threatened during President Calderon’s “fight against drugs” in Mexico.
Waldorf mama to J, Andrea is radically committed to guaranteeing safety for her across every area she comes to contact with and centering care and dignity in their lives. Together they have been resisting sexualized violence for 8 years and continue to resist the ongoing legal and social violence from the aftermath of speaking up in an attempt to stop it.
This past year Andrea has been coursing ECOS’ Diploma Course on working with people from a feminist anti-colonial perspective that brings to Latin context RBP ideas, which has been crucial to giving meaning to what they have been through which will continue to be the world and circumstance J grows up in.
Other forms of donation and/or in-kind support
Insight Exchange would not be what it is today without the engagement, support and expertise of others. The work is enriched by all who participate, as well as Associate colleagues, collaborators, in-kind supporters, individual contributors, and donors. The industry specialists and suppliers we work with also make meaningful contributions through their skilled expertise and in various forms of donation to the work. The Insight Exchange team would like to thank:
- support with copy Rachael Cann
- the team at L.E.K. Consulting for the generous pro bono support of 30+ consultants to review 150+ websites and the development of short guides featured in the No Hidden Door project resources
- the team at Salt and Fuessel for their generous initiative to reach out to us and provide dedicated assistance (as a form of donation) in digital SEO support.
- animator Guy Downes (and team) for extending the rights in perpetuity (as a form of donation) for work developed in the Insight Exchange animations.
- the team at RMK for reducing their commercial rates (as a form of donation) to assist in producing the voice overs for the the Insight Exchange animations.