Domestic Violence Consultant and Expert Witness Testimony

Melissa is currently the Director of International Training at Global Rights for Women.  She has a wealth of experience as the recent former executive director of Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs (DAIP), also known as “the Duluth Model.”  Prior to working in Duluth as the executive director and a trainer on “the Duluth Model” for many years, she was the executive director of Advocates for Family Peace (AFFP) where she worked for 17 years.  AFFP is a local multi-county domestic violence program that provided advocacy, emergency shelter, transitional housing, batterers intervention program (BIP), and supervised visitation program. She has also organized and lead three Coordinated Community Responses (CCRs) programs to address domestic violence. Melissa has co-facilitated groups for men who batter since 1999 and groups for women who use force since 2005.  She has co-written curriculum and written resources on domestic violence that have been utilized internationally, nationally, and statewide.  She has testified as an expert witness in primarily criminal court cases in Minnesota and Wisconsin since 2006.  She has testified as an expert witness for prosecutors and defense attorneys.  Recently, she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for Women in Public Service from Hamline University. 

Melissa Scaia's full biography and curriculum vitae for expert witness testimony 

Areas of expertise related to domestic violence

Customized Training

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• Developing and organizing a Coordinated Community Response (CCR)
• Addressing women’s use of violence in a CCR
• Advocacy for victims of domestic violence
• Facilitating men’s behavior change programs
• Facilitating women’s non-violence programs
• Parenting by men who batter
• Supervised visitation in cases of domestic violence 
• Development of risk assessments in a CCR
• Enhanced facilitation skills in court ordered groups
• Addressing domestic violence in the family court context
• Domestic violence and the Catholic Church
• Domestic violence expert witness court consultation and testimony
• Keynote speeches on domestic violence

Workshops and training for:

• NGOs and advocacy organizations
• Batterers Intervention Programs
• Custody evaluators, mediators, and GALs
• Social Service agencies
• Mental Health Professionals
• Substance Abuse agencies and professionals
• Law Enforcement agencies and personnel
• Prosecutors, Defense Attorneys seeking expert witness
• Family and juvenile court attorneys seeking expert witness

Consultations

• Government Agencies
• NGOs and Nonprofits
• Gender-based Violence Programs
• Faith Communities
• Advocacy Organizations