Ellen Pence
{{short description|American sociologist and activist}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2023}}
Ellen Louise Pence (April 15, 1948 – January 6, 2012)Minnesota Birth Index, 1935-1995 was an American scholar and a social activist. She co-founded the Duluth Domestic Abuse Intervention Project,{{Cite web |url=https://secure.forumcomm.com/?publisher_ID=36&article_id=159645&CFID=163462447&CFTOKEN=98078081 |title=Duluth News Tribune report on the Duluth Domestic Abuse Intervention Project |access-date=March 23, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110726165947/https://secure.forumcomm.com/?publisher_ID=36&article_id=159645&CFID=163462447&CFTOKEN=98078081%2F |archive-date=July 26, 2011 |url-status=dead }} an inter-agency collaboration model used in all 50 states in the U.S. and over 17 countries.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/16/magazine/when-men-hit-women.html|title=When Men Hit Women|first=Jan|last=Hoffman|work=The New York Times |date=February 16, 1992|via=NYTimes.com}} A leader in both the battered women's movement and the emerging field of institutional ethnography, she was the recipient of numerous awards including the Society for the Study of Social Problems Dorothy E. Smith Scholar Activist Award (2008) for significant contributions in a career of activist research.
Background
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Pence graduated from St. Scholastica in Duluth with a B.A. in arts. She was active in institutional change work for battered women since 1975, and helped found the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project in 1980.
She is credited with creating the Duluth Model of intervention in domestic violence cases, Coordinated Community Response (CCR), which uses an interagency collaborative approach involving police, probation, courts and human services in response to domestic abuse. The primary goal of CCR is to protect victims from ongoing abuse.{{Citation needed|date=January 2012}}
She earned her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Toronto in 1996. She used institutional ethnography as a method of organizing community groups to analyze problems created by institutional intervention in families. She founded Praxis International in 1998 and was the chief author and architect of the Praxis Institutional Audit, a method of identifying, analyzing and correcting institutional failures to protect people drawn into legal and human service systems because of violence and poverty.{{Citation needed|date=January 2012}}
Activism and research
Pence's focus was on legislative efforts, legal reform projects, shelter and advocacy program development, and training programs for judges, probation officers, law enforcement officers, and human service providers. Pence was the author of several educational manuals and curricula for classes for battered women, men who batter, and law enforcement officers. She co-authored two books: Educational Groups for Men Who Batter: The Duluth Model{{Cite book |last=Pence |first=Ellen |url={{google books|plainurl=yes|id=pBjZSdZ1LsEC}} |title=Education Groups for Men Who Batter: The Duluth Model |last2=Paymar |first2=Michael |date=6 April 1993 |isbn=9780826179913}} and Coordinated Community Response to Domestic Violence: Lessons from the Duluth Model.{{Cite book |url={{google books|plainurl=yes|id=Vk_qT-apdT4C|keywords=ellen pence}} |title=Coordinating Community Responses to Domestic Violence: Lessons from Duluth and Beyond |date=August 21, 1999 |isbn=9780761911241 |editor-last=Shepard |editor-first=Melanie F. |editor-last2=Pence |editor-first2=Ellen}}
Until late 2011 she was the executive director of Praxis International.{{Cite web|url=https://praxisinternational.org/|title=Domestic Violence Help | Advocacy|website=Praxis International}} and worked with a national team of experts to run an advocacy learning center{{Cite web |title=Office of Violence Against Women USDOJ justice Blog |url=http://blogs.usdoj.gov/blog/archives/category/ovaw |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100527085802/http://blogs.usdoj.gov/blog/archives/category/ovaw |archive-date=May 27, 2010}} to strengthen advocacy programs' skills and capacities in their work toward ending violence against women.
Death
Pence died of breast cancer on January 6, 2012, aged 63, in St. Paul, Minnesota.{{cite web|url=http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/219229|title=Abuse victims' advocate Ellen Pence dies|publisher=Duluth News Tribune|date=February 5, 2010|access-date=January 8, 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120730124552/https://secure.forumcomm.com/?publisher_ID=36&article_id=219229&CFID=357240430&CFTOKEN=14115786|archive-date=July 30, 2012}} (subscription required)
References
{{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pence, Ellen}}
Category:American sociologists
Category:American women sociologists
Category:Activists from Minneapolis
Category:University of Toronto alumni
Category:Deaths from breast cancer in Minnesota