Prevention Summit 2022- Meet the Presenters

Lórien Castelle has been an activist and advocate for social justice issues focusing on gender based violence for over two decades. She joined the team at the New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NYSCADV) in 1998 and has had the honor of working closely with communities and state coalitions across the country during her tenure. Ms. Castelle split her time between NYSCADV and the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence from 2011- 2013 in order to launch a statewide prevention initiative in Pennsylvania. Ms. Castelle specializes in community and school-based based prevention strategies, including: teen dating violence prevention, promoting healthy relationship norms, developing youth activism and leadership, engaging men as allies, workplace violence prevention and community organizing. She has a strong background in organizational development and strategic planning which she applies to coalition building, prevention planning and supporting coordinated community response efforts.

Ms. Castelle works on many of NYSCADV’s special projects including promoting best practices for serving people who have been victimized and organizational capacity building with a particular lens on trauma-informed, survivor-driven approaches. Ms. Castelle serves on numerous national, statewide and regional committees and is a much sought after trainer, meeting facilitator and keynote speaker. As Director of Prevention for NYSCADV she has assisted communities in designing and launching local initiatives in and across school districts, college campuses and in the workplace with activities that promote social norms change and prevent domestic violence from happening in the first place. Ms. Castelle provides a wide range of coaching, support and training to domestic violence programs and allies throughout New York State and to coalitions and communities throughout the country.

Rus Ervin Funk is a consultant specializing in working with organizations and communities to promote healthy masculinities; equity, diversity and justice; and violence
prevention. Rus is a long-time activist and community organizer focusing on anti-racism, and gender justice.
Among his organizing efforts, he is co-founder of DC Men Against Rape (now Men Can Stop Rape, Inc.), Men for Gender Justice, the Baltimore Alliance to End Child Sexual
Abuse, MensWork: eliminating violence against women, the Own It Initiative (a project of the Center for Women and Families), the Ohio Men’s Action Network, White Folks
Against Racism, among others.

George Kilpatrick is the Men’s Outreach and Project Coordinator and certified educator at Vera House. Vera House is a comprehensive domestic violence and sexual assault agency, providing outreach to men in the prevention of domestic violence, sexual assault, and healthy masculinity. He conducts workshops and trainings nationally, and is a member of the Futures Without Violence Coaching Boys into Men National Advisory Council. Kilpatrick also facilitates the Vera House 12 Men Model where men engage and hold their peers accountable through conversations to redefine masculinity and healthy relationships.

David S. Lee, MPH, is the Deputy Director at ValorUS®. David provides leadership in national and California prevention efforts including VALOR's national online resource center, PreventConnect, training and technical assistance for California's sexual and domestic violence prevention efforts, and RALIANCE's Sport + Prevention Center. David has been involved in the movement to end sexual assault and domestic violence since 1982, working with a variety of local sexual assault and domestic violence prevention agencies prior to join VALOR (then the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault) in 2005.
David has been a Movement Maker for NOVO Foundation's Move to End Violence initiative and was awarded for Excellence in Public Service by the Injury Control and Emergency Health Services Section of the American Public Health Association. He is the author of many articles and publications on prevention, including the 2022 Journal of Interpersonal Violence article, "Prevention of Sexual Violence in sport: A Socioecological Review."

Eric McGriff is the Prevention Coordinator at the Crime Victims Treatment Center (CVTC), Inc., where he supports community-level efforts to prevent and respond to violence in New York City, and across the globe.

McGriff has an extensive background as a domestic and sexual violence trainer and facilitator engaging, among other populations, K-12 schools, college campuses, men and boys, and men who batter. He has facilitated and trained for several national and international entities including, the U.S. Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime and The National Centers for Victims of Crime. As a former Spokesperson for U.N. Women and a current Global Peace Ambassador, Eric also has a background supporting various United Nations efforts to address issues at the intersections of youth, gender, and violent extremism.

Inspired by CVTC’s trauma-focused, relational, and affect-centered therapeutic model, McGriff's work to transform communities bridges the gap between evidence-supported interventions and local community context by folding trauma-informed, participatory principles and practices into public health approaches. Through a framework of cultural humility, and with a focus on system collaboration and psychological safety, Eric seeks to tap into community’s existing expertise and evolutionary potential to learn about, build, and discover structures and practices that better meet the needs of its most vulnerable populations.

Rowan Reyes, MSW, CYT (they/them) is a queer, non-binary trans activist, educator, visual artist and poet. Rowan’s mission is to (co)create transformative experiences to cultivate healing and fuel collective liberation. These experiential containers include interactive workshops, professional trainings, spiritual circles, and trauma-informed movement/embodiment classes. Whether barefoot on the mat or behind a podium, the unifying aim of Rowan’s work is to sow and nurture the seeds of anti-oppressive social change. For more info: mx.rowanreyes@gmail.com.

Sarah joined the NYSCASA staff in 2016 as the special projects coordinator, later transitioning into the role of director of prevention. In her current position, Sarah serves as the project lead for NYSCASA’S Sexual Assault Demonstration Initiative (SADI) prevention cohort, as well as other prevention projects. Prior to joining NYSCASA, Sarah was an advocate at Disability Rights New York and the program and policy director at The League of Women Voters of New York State. She has a Bachelor of Arts in women’s studies and a Master of Social Work from the State University of New York at Albany.

Quentin Walcott, known as “Q,” is a leading national and international anti-violence activist, educator and writer.

A hallmark of Quentin’s work over the past 22 years has been engaging men and boys as allies and activists in the movement to prevent intimate and gender-based violence. The foundation of Quentin’s work is a focus on the intersections of violence—race, class and gender—and its impact on marginalized communities.

As Co-Executive Directors of CONNECT, Quentin and Rev. Dr. Sally MacNichol were jointly named New York New Abolitionists in 2014. Prior to taking the helm of CONNECT in 2013, Quentin developed the CONNECT Training Institute (CTI), the leading anti-violence learning facility in NYC, and was director of CONNECT’s Community Empowerment Program.