Human trafficking in Kansas topic of first Jurich Lecture on Social Justice
Thursday, Feb. 26, 2015
MANHATTAN — Dorthy Stucky Halley, an authority on domestic violence dynamics and batterers, will present the first Tony Jurich Lecture on Social Justice at Kansas State University. Halley's presentation will be at 3 p.m. Thursday, March 12, in the Little Theatre at the K-State Student Union.
The Jurich lecture is presented by the marriage and family therapy program, which is offered by the School of Family Studies and Human Services in Kansas State University's College of Human Ecology.
A licensed master social worker, Halley is director of the Victim Services Division in the Kansas attorney general's office. She will talk on "Different Motives for Those Who Batter and the Link to Human Trafficking."
More than 350 victims of human trafficking in Kansas were reported to the state attorney general's office during fiscal 2014. In at least a third of the cases, the trafficker was the spouse or partner, Halley said.
Halley, who received the Outstanding Victim Advocate of the Year award in 1996, has given more than 1,000 presentations at the national, state and local level on batterer intervention, domestic violence, human trafficking and other topics regarding victimization.
Halley also provides expert witness testimony in domestic violence cases. Her development of a motivation typology for those who batter has opened the door to a new understanding for judges, prosecutors, law enforcement officers, advocates and others working in the domestic violence field. She has led state efforts in Kansas to develop standards, certify batterer intervention programs, and apply evidence-based practice in this field.
Halley started providing services to victims in 1986, and served as executive director of Safehouse Inc. for more than a decade. During this time, she developed a model rural batterer intervention program in the early 1990s, which she continued to operate while teaching social work at Pittsburg State University for another decade before accepting her current position.
In addition to her work on domestic violence, Halley organized the development of the Attorney General's Human Trafficking Advisory Board in Kansas, and served as the first coordinator. She continues to serve on this board, and chairs the Victim Services Subcommittee. For her latest publication, Halley co-authored the chapter "Providing Effective Services to Victims of Human Trafficking: Theoretical, Practical, and Ethical Considerations" in the book "Human Trafficking: A Multidisciplinary Approach, 2014."
Halley has served as president of the Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence, the Kansas Organization for Victim Assistance, and the Kansas Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.
The Tony Jurich Lecture on Social Justice honors Jurich, a professor who taught in School of Family Studies and Human Services for more than 39 years before his death in 2010. Jurich earned national recognition for his work as a leader in the field of family therapy. He believed in social justice and challenged his students and colleagues to value diversity, promote equality and endorse fairness.
In 2014, Jurich's wife, Olivia Collins, and his brother, Steve Jurich, established the Tony Jurich Community Commitment and Leadership Student Awards, which recognize graduating students who demonstrate a commitment to the professor's core leadership tenets.
The tenets — strive for resonance; assume value and be respectful; be compassionate; do what is right; seek out, affirm and utilize diversity; and lead by example — provide a road map for sustainable community change, said Marcie Lechtenberg, marriage and family therapist instructor and therapist supervisor in the School of Family Studies ad Human Services. She received a Jurich graduate student award in 2014.
"Tony was loved and respected as a dedicated therapist, an enthusiastic teacher and researcher, and a wise supervisor and mentor," Lechtenberg said.
