interfaith partnership against
domestic violence and elder abuse
National Domestic Violence Hotline
800-799-7233 (SAFE)
National Sexual Assault Hotline
800-656-4673 (HOPE)
Who We Are
Safe Havens' staff and Advisory Board include faith community members, domestic violence service providers, and business experts. Safe Havens works with diverse faith congregations across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and across the U.S. to promote safe and effective faith-based responses to domestic violence.
Safe Havens Staff
Anne Marie approaches her work with Safe Havens from many perspectives. As a seminary student, she saw the need to connect seminary education and the abuse that is happening in homes and families. As a parish pastor, she learned how challenging it can be to respond to situations of abuse within the congregation. As an advocate in domestic violence shelters, she learned how important faith is to survivors and how crucial the response from faith leaders can be. Anne Marie was one of the original founders of Safe Havens, and she is dedicated to partnering with faith leaders and faith communities to end domestic violence and elder abuse.
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Anne Marie has taught at Drew University and Tufts University and published locally and nationally on both domestic violence and elder abuse. She has received the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women’s Unsung Heroines Award, an Humanitarian Award from the Anti-Defamation League for “furthering interfaith understanding,” and the Heinz Family Foundation R.O.S.E. Award.
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Anne Marie is an ordained United Methodist pastor who can be found gardening, running, or walking her dog Denver when she is not working for Safe Havens.
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Here at Safe Havens, Alyson creates, coordinates, and implements Safe Havens’ local and national work regarding sexual and domestic violence and elder abuse. She also provides national technical assistance on domestic violence and faith, elder abuse and faith, and domestic and sexual violence and faith in rural communities through Safe Havens’ national Technical Assistance projects, which are funded by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women. Alyson also supports much of Safe Havens’ infrastructure--all the behind-the-scenes-stuff--where she puts her Master’s in Public Administration (from New York University) to good use. Alyson is actively involved in Greater Boston’s Jewish Domestic Violence Coalition as well as in Jewish Women International’s Interfaith Coalition Against Domestic Violence. And when she is not busy with Safe Havens, Alyson can often be found out on a walk with her dog, Clementine.
Safe Havens Community Partners Advisory Board
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Board Chair
Reverend Traci Jackson
Director of the Domestic and Sexual Violence Project, Urban League of Eastern MA; Consultant and Team Leader, The Institute on Domestic Violence in the African American Community (IDVAAC)
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Barbara Burnside
Disaster Response Trainer and Evaluator for UMCOR & Retired Disaster Response Coordinator for the New England region of the United Methodist Church
Honorable J. Thomas Kirkman (Ret.)
Retired First Justice, Edgartown District Court; Former Director of the Domestic Violence Prosecution Unit of the Cape and Islands District Attorney, Member of the Massachusetts Bar Association, the Barnstable County Bar Association, the Town of Falmouth's No Place for Hate Committee, Governing Board of the Cape Cod Council of Churches, and the Society for Community Ministries, Unitarian Universalist Association.
Liz Marshall
Trafficking Intervention Project Advocate at Beth Israel Medical Center; Domestic Violence Advocate at Massachusetts General Hospital; Postulant for Holy Orders in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts
Dr. Nancy Nienhuis
Adjunct Faculty, Boston University School of Theology
Kay Larholt Silverman, Sc.D.
Sr. Advisor, Center for Biomedical System Design & NEWDIGS, Tufts Medical Center (Retired)
Kathryne Tenney
Masters of Public Health Student at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health