BEMIDJI, Minn. — Bemidji State University and the Sexual Assault Program of Beltrami, Cass and Hubbard Counties will be sponsoring the third biannual “Breaking the Silence” conference on sexual and domestic violence issues in northern Minnesota on Thursday and Friday, April 2-3.

The conference runs from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. each day and will be held at the American Indian Resource Center on the Bemidji State campus.

Registration for the two-day conference is $40, and single-day registrations are available for $25 per day. The registration fee includes lunch, and is due by the registration deadline of Friday, March 15. Continuing education and POST credits are available.

Registration forms can be downloaded at http://www.sapbchc.org.

Speakers at the conference will include Mark Wynn, a retired Nashville, Tenn., police officer; Olga Trujillo; Sarah Deer, a visiting professor at the William Mitchell College of Law; attorney Caroline Palmer; Frank Jewell from Men as Peacemakers; and Chuck Derry, the co-founder of the Gender Violence Institute.

The speakers will direct some of the conference’s 15 breakout sessions, which cover a broad range of topics including examinations of dual assaults, a discussion of historical trauma, civil liability in domestic violence incidents and the trafficking of American Indian women and girls.

The conference is sponsored by the Sexual Assault Program of Beltrami, Cass and Hubbard Counties; Anishinabe Legal Services; Northwoods Coalition for Family Safety; the Bemidji State University Women’s Center; the Hobson Memorial Union; and Bemidji State’s departments of criminal justice and psychology and its sociology, social work and women’s studies programs.

For more information, please contact the Sexual Assault Program of Beltrami, Cass and Hubbard Counties at (218) 444-9524 or via e-mail at BTSconference@gmail.com.

FOR YOUR CALENDAR
April 2-3 – Bemidji State University hosts the third biannual “Breaking the Silence” conference on sexual assualt. Registration: $40, includes lunch; single-day registrations available for $25; registration deadline Friday, March 15. Location: American Indian Resource Center, Bemidji State University. Information: (218) 444-9524, BTSconference@gmail.com, or at http://www.sapbchc.org.