Elizabeth Speakman
Coordinator, Domestic and Gender-Based Violence, Prevention Initiative, City of Cambridge
Liz has committed her professional life to domestic violence (DV) intervention and prevention. She started working at Independence House, a DV program, in 2000 as an administrative assistant and was hired to provide training and coordination of the volunteer program. She has been committed to finding ways to support survivors and engage in community prevention efforts since then.
She worked at Emerge, the local abuser education program, as an office manager, partner contact worker and group leader before and during graduate school. After Liz received her Master’s in Social Work from Salem State University in 2005, she began working at Mass General Hospital (MGH) as a Domestic Violence Advocate in the HAVEN program, the in-house domestic violence advocacy and training program.
At HAVEN, Liz provided counseling and advocacy to survivors of intimate partner abuse and facilitated support groups. Liz created and implemented trainings for health care providers across MGH. After 3 years, Liz was promoted to Director of the HAVEN program. She was instrumental in bringing a Trauma Informed initiative to Mass General as well as Partners Healthcare system. She was at Mass General for 9 years and provided counseling and support to over 500 survivors of abuse and trained over 1,000 health care providers.
Liz started working for the City of Cambridge in 2014. Since joining the City, Liz has collaborated with local community-based organizations and city departments to ensure comprehensive prevention and intervention efforts around gender-based violence in the community. She has been a primary force in the development and implementation of the innovative and unique Trauma Informed Law Enforcement Training. This training and subsequent changes to sexual assault investigations at the Cambridge Police Department have transformed the approach to supporting survivors.
She was the recipient of the Beacon of Change award from the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center in 2017.