An International Interdisciplinary Conference on
Fatherhood and Men’s Experiences with Violence and Victimization

September 15 -16, 2022

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

About the Conference

This conference brought international scholars from various disciplines, service providers, community leaders, private practitioners, and community members to examine the various perspectives on fatherhood, family dynamics and relationships, men’s experiences with violence, and victimization. Discussions also included legal and community support for men.

There were two Keynote Speakers, three panel sessions, and 59 presentations from 21 countries and regions in six continents!

Conference Program | Presentation Slides and Recordings

Keynote Speakers

Dr. Denise Hines, PhD

Denise Hines is an Associate Professor at the Department of Social Work at George Mason University. Dr. Hines’ expertise includes the causes, consequences, and prevention of family violence and sexual assault, with a particular focus on male victims of partner violence. Dr. Hines’ work has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Department of Justice, and the Department of Education, totaling over $4.1 million US dollars. Dr. Hines has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles and two books on issues of family violence, one of which – Family Violence in the United States – was recently released in a third edition. She has spoken about her work in front of various audiences, including scholarly audiences, state coalitions against domestic violence, the Massachusetts State legislature, the White House domestic policy staff, staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Canadian Parliament. She and two of her colleagues are currently contracted with Routledge as editors of the upcoming book, Handbook of Men’s Victimisation in Intimate Relationships.   

Dr. Joshua Coleman, PhD

Joshua Coleman is a psychologist in private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area and a Senior Fellow with the Council on Contemporary Families. He is the co-editor, along with historian Stephanie Coontz, of seven online volumes, entitled, Wisdom: News You Can Use, a compendium of noteworthy research on the contemporary family, gender, sexuality, poverty, and work-family issues. 

He has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, NBC THINK, The Behavioral Scientist, CNN, MarketWatch, San Francisco Chronicle, Greater Good Magazine, AEON, Huffington Post, Psychology Today, etc. Also, he has authored numerous articles and chapters and written four books: The Rules of Engagement (Random House); The Marriage Makeover: Finding Happiness in Imperfect Harmony (St. Martin’s Press); The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting, and Housework (St. Martin’s Press), and When Parents Hurt: Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don’t Get Along (HarperCollins).

Meet the Organizers

Susan Chuang, PhD

Susan Chuang, lead conference organizer, is a Full Professor at the University of Guelph, ON. She has several lines of research: (1) parenting, fathering, parent-child relationships in various sociocultural and geographical contexts; (2) cannabis use and the impact on familial dynamics and relationships (SSHRC-funded); and (3) intimate partner violence against men, child custody and access issues in high conflict situations, and the impact on individual and family well-being (SSHRC-funded). She is currently the Series Editor for Springer on the Advances on Immigrant Family Research. She is the Associate Editor for the Journal of Family Psychology and the Journal of Adolescent Research. She conducts free community workshops for parents and youth. She has organized six international conferences on immigrant families (On New Shores conferences) which have attracted leading scholars from various disciplines as well as delegates from community organizations from around the world.

Susan Burke, PhD

Susan Burke is an Associate Professor at the University of Northern British Columbia, BC. She was a front line child welfare social worker for 20 years before entering academia. Her areas of interest include kinship care, Indigenous children, families and communities, Indigenous education, and research by, with, and for Indigenous peoples. 

Myriam Denov, PhD

Myriam Denov is a Full Professor at McGill University, QC, and holds the Canada Research Chair in Children, Families and Armed Conflict (Tier 1). Her research interests lie in the areas of children and families affected by war, migration, and its intergenerational impact. A specialist in participatory and arts-based research, she has worked with war-affected children and families in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. She is the founding Director of Global Child McGill – a research group dedicated to children and families affected by war and migration. She is the recipient of the 2020 SSHRC Impact Award and the Killam Research Fellowship. She is a Trudeau Foundation Fellow, and a Member of the Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists.

Alexandra Lysova, PhD

Alexandra Lysova is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University, BC. She has studied intimate partner violence, including violence against women and children, for over 15 years in Russia and currently in Canada. Recently, she has focused on men’s experiences of intimate partner violence, including victimization, help-seeking behaviour, and issues involving children. In her research, she draws on the results of the international focus groups among male victims in four English-speaking countries, Canadian General Social Survey on Victimization, and Homicide Survey. Dr. Lysova’s research has been supported by the prestigious foundations, including Trudeau, Fulbright, Carnegie and Humboldt foundations, and also the U.S. Library of Congress and Max Planck Institute.

Benjamin Roebuck, PhD

Benjamin Roebuck is a Professor in Victimology and Public Safety at Algonquin College, ON. He serves as the Research Chair for the Victimology Research Centre housed within the Office of Applied Research, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship (ARIE). Currently, he is an academic advisor to the Crime Prevention Ottawa (CPO) Youth Reference Group, and the External Advisory Council for the Sexual Misconduct Response Center with the Canadian Armed Forces and Department of National Defence. He is the principal investigator for a national SSHRC-funded study on victim services and vicarious resilience, and a SSHRC-funded study on COVID-19 and system responses to homelessness.