Karen Irene Kalergis is the president of Mani Partners Strategic Communications. She was the product coordinator for the OVC VTT, a project to develop an online repository to help first responders and victim service organizations become more vicarious trauma-informed, and the project director for the OVC Resiliency Project, which created and piloted an organizational resiliency model for child abuse agencies. In her nearly 30 years of experience in the victim services field, Ms. Kalergis has focused on addressing how victim service providers are impacted by their work. She is a writer and storyteller, and infuses her presentations with information from research and practice wisdom. She has provided training to law enforcement, prosecutors, victim advocates, teachers, and health care workers in urban, rural, and tribal communities. In 2015, Ms. Kalergis was awarded the prestigious National Crime Victim Service Award, which honors extraordinary individuals and programs. She also assists organizations with implementation of victims’ rights, model standards, strategic planning, and State Victim Assistance Academies.

Katherine Manners is a senior partner at Resilience Works, providing training, technical assistance, and consultation to victim service and crisis responder programs. She has more than 30 years of organizational consulting and training experience in the fields of victim services, homicide bereavement, and resilience. Ms. Manners serves as a resource coordinator for the OVC VTT. She completed a project to develop an innovative, statewide homicide specialist training, as well as standards for advocate and program credentialing and certification in Iowa. She is the co-founder and author of a program and curriculum that provide information and support to direct service advocates on secondary traumatic stress, organizational development, and self-care.

She provides crisis intervention counseling and critical incident debriefings, individual and family therapy, and support groups, as well as court accompaniment for people who are injured and traumatized, medical personnel, and first responders. Ms. Manners began her career as a victim witness advocate in a district attorney’s office. She subsequently delivered clinical support and advocacy as a clinician and director of an inner-city homicide services program. She provided consulting to, developed, and served in two other homicide programs in the Boston and Cambridge areas. Ms. Manners delivered crisis and ongoing supportive services to survivors and first responders following the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and she served on a crisis team responding to the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City. Ms. Manners holds a master’s degree in Education in Clinical Psychology, a bachelor’s degree in Cultural Anthropology, and a license in Marriage and Family Therapy.

*OVC TTAC instructors have no vested interest in any products, instruments, devices, or materials that may be used in this training.