Strategic Interventions presents this essential workshop for frontline service providers, including transition house workers, anti-violence advocates, legal professionals, social workers, counsellors, mental health practitioners, and health service workers. This training equips participants with the skills to develop trauma- and violence-informed safety plans that address gender-specific diverse risks and challenges faced by individuals experiencing intimate partner violence.

Workshop Overview:

Safety planning is a critical component of supporting survivors of violence, ensuring they have strategies to reduce risk and enhance their well-being. This workshop explores a broad range of safety issues, including protection orders, navigating risk without legal protections, workplace safety, safety at home and community, safety planning with children, and addressing the safety of companion animals.

Participants will learn how to conduct solid safety, threat, and lethality assessments using an intersectional, trauma- and violence-informed approach. This includes recognizing how victims and survivors interact with family, community, institutions, and systems—both as potential risks and sources of support. The workshop will also cover lethality risks and assessments, helping participants identify high-risk situations, recognize warning signs of escalating violence, and take proactive measures to mitigate the risk of serious harm or femicide.

Learning Outcomes:

• Trauma- and Violence-Informed Safety Planning: Develop victim and survivor-centred safety plans that account for the personal and systemic impacts of trauma and violence.
• Comprehensive Safety Strategies: Address risks at home, in the community, in the workplace or at school, with children, and with companion animals.
• Legal and Non-Legal Protections: Understand the role of protection orders, their limitations, and alternative safety measures when legal protections are not applicable.
• Risk, Threat, and Lethality Assessments: Conduct thorough evaluations to identify immediate and long-term risks, including assessing the likelihood of lethal violence.
• Intersectional Approach to Safety: Recognize how factors such as gender, race, disability, immigration status, and economic barriers impact safety planning.
• Leveraging Community and Institutional Resources: Identify how families, communities, workplaces, and legal and social systems can serve as both risks and sources of support.
• Empowering Survivors: Equip survivors with the tools and knowledge to make informed, strategic decisions about their safety.

This trauma- and violence-informed workshop is essential for professionals working with survivors of violence, providing them with the skills to navigate complex safety concerns while centring the autonomy and lived experiences of those they support.

Meet Your Trainer: Angela Marie MacDougall – Leading Expert in Gender-Based Violence Advocacy & Training

For over 30 years, Angela Marie MacDougall has been a highly sought-after trainer, educator, and advocate, equipping frontline workers, service providers, and community members with the skills needed to support survivors of domestic violence, intimate partner violence, and gender-based violence.

Angela’s expertise is rooted in real-world experience, evidence-based practices, and a deep commitment to intersectional, trauma- and violence-informed approaches. She has trained thousands of professionals, including anti-violence workers, social workers, legal advocates, counsellors, mental health practitioners, and community organizers, ensuring they have the tools to respond effectively to survivors’ needs.

Comprehensive, Evidence-Based Training Rooted in Real-World Experience

With over 30 years of frontline experience, Angela has designed and led high-impact training programs that equip professionals with proven, victim and survivor-centred advocacy strategies. Her expertise is built on leading teams, conducting community-based research, and driving advocacy efforts to improve responses to gender-based violence. Angela ensures that every trainee gains practical, evidence-based tools drawn from real-world practice, frontline engagement, and cutting-edge research—preparing them to effectively support survivors and navigate complex systems.

Why Train with Angela?

• Decades of Training Experience: Angela has designed, developed, and delivered training programs since the 1990s, shaping how professionals across Canada, the U.S., and internationally respond to gender-based violence.
• Intersectional, Trauma- and Violence-Informed Approach: Angela’s training integrates a feminist, anti-oppression lens that recognizes the impact of colonialism, systemic racism, mental wellness, and substance use on survivors.
• Engaging, Practical, and Transformative Learning: Trainees gain hands-on, actionable skills through interactive workshops, case studies, and expert guidance on safety planning, lethality assessment, advocacy strategies, and systemic navigation.
• A Trainer Who Understands Systemic Barriers: As a bi-racial Black woman who grew up confronting racism, misogyny, and systemic violence, Angela brings lived experience and political analysis to her training, making her an authentic and relatable educator.

Who Has Angela Trained?

Angela has led training for a wide range of professionals and organizations, including:

• Community-based anti-violence organizations
• Transition house workers and frontline service providers
• Legal advocates, lawyers, and justice system professionals
• Social workers, counsellors, and mental health practitioners
• University faculty, students, and researchers
• Government and policy-makers working to improve gender-based violence responses

Recognition & Leadership

Angela’s longstanding leadership in the gender equity movement has earned her numerous accolades, including being named a Remarkable Woman by the City of Vancouver and one of Vancouver Magazine’s most powerful people. She is a founding member of organizations like Feminists Deliver, the February 14th Women’s Memorial March, and the Intersectional Feminist Justice Research and Organizing Collaborative, all dedicated to advancing justice for survivors.

As the Executive Director of Battered Women’s Support Services (BWSS), Angela Marie MacDougall has been a driving force in developing trauma- and violence-informed interventions across crisis response, counselling, legal advocacy, and systemic change initiatives. Under her leadership, BWSS has expanded its frontline services and advocacy efforts, designed in the interest of victims and survivors receiving comprehensive, survivor-centred support while advancing policy and systemic reforms to address gender-based violence at its root.

Train with an Expert. Advocate with Confidence.

If you’re looking for a trainer with deep expertise, a commitment to empowerment, and a track record of transforming advocacy efforts, Angela Marie MacDougall is the instructor you want. Her dynamic, engaging, and high-impact training sessions will equip you with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to effectively support survivors and drive meaningful change.

Join one of Angela’s training programs and become a stronger advocate in the fight against gender-based violence.