National Crime Victims' Rights Week (NCVRW)

Michelle Ballan is a Professor and Associate Dean for Research at the School of Social Welfare; Professor of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine at Renaissance School of Medicine; Research Director for the Stony Brook Early Childhood Clinic; and Director of the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities (LEND) Center at Stony Brook University. Her research and practice focus on the identification and amelioration of barriers impacting the health and well-being of individuals with disabilities and their families. Her groundbreaking work has led to numerous publications delineating the negative impact of intimate partner violence on men and women with disabilities and best practices for service provision.

Aswad Thomas is a community organizer, crime victim advocate, public safety policy expert, and a survivor of gun violence. Throughout his career, Mr. Thomas has brought unprecedented awareness of the unique and urgent needs of victims who are most impacted by crime and violence but who have been historically underserved, with a focus on addressing unaddressed trauma.

Joan Meunier-Sham is the director of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) Program and is responsible for the statewide delivery of acute adult and adolescent SANE services in 52 Massachusetts hospitals, and the delivery of Pediatric SANE services in 10 of the state’s 12 Children’s Advocacy Centers. She was also the co-director of the National TeleNursing Center (NTC), a pilot project funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office for Victims of Crime. In this pioneering project, expert SANEs at the NTC used telehealth technology to provide 24/7 “real time” support and guidance to clinicians conducting forensic examinations for adult and adolescent sexual assault patients in underserved communities.

Elijah Lee is a 16-year-old, and a national advocate for children. His activism started at the age of 10 years old, as he led his first child abuse awareness march, where he rallied the community and educated others about its prevalence. Elijah founded a nonprofit organization, Hear Our Voices, in 2021, dedicated to empowering young people with an emphasis on assisting youth to find their voices and become agents of change.

Jocelyn Mejia is a social worker with the Imperial County Department of Social Services, Children and Families Division in California. She has worked in child welfare for 8 years, and currently works on complex and Indian Child Welfare Act cases in Imperial County, a border community in a rural area adjoining Mexico, the State of Arizona, three California counties, and a Tribal reservation. Ms. Mejia has been instrumental in ensuring that the youngest victims of crime are treated with love, respect, and care.