Please join us for a webinar that will share practical guidance on addressing past research harms and building durable, trust-based partnerships with communities to support meaningful firearm violence prevention research. A panel of experts will discuss:

• The core principles of Community Engaged Research (CER)
• Best practices in CER and their application to firearm violence prevention
• Strategies for co-creating research questions and study design with community partners
• When and how to engage academic partners to support research activities
• Actionable guidance on trust building, data sharing, and institutional review board (IRB) considerations

Register to Attend

Speakers include:

Kathryn Bocanegra, PhD, LCSW, Assistant Professor, Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois Chicago, has more than 18 years of experience in community mental health, community violence prevention, and criminal justice reform work. Her professional and research interests include community violence prevention, complex trauma and bereavement, working with survivors of violent crime, and examining the intersection of the criminal justice system with urban neighborhoods.

Kelly Carroll, LCSW, Associate Director of Staff Wellness and Behavioral Health Services, Institute for Nonviolence Chicago, earned her BA in Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and her MSW at the University of Southern California. Kelly has worked with survivors of trauma for over 13 years in various clinical settings focusing on issues such as homelessness, acute medical care, readjustment to civilian life from the military, reducing community violence, and PTSD related to combat trauma, sexual trauma, and community violence. After spending 10 years working with military veterans and their family members, she most recently worked as a trauma specialist at Chicago CRED where she trained staff in trauma-informed care practices and oversaw the development and implementation of a cognitive behavioral intervention designed to build resilience from trauma. She has a special interest in the intersection between trauma and public policy and addressing trauma exposure among violence intervention workers.

Edwin Galletti, Vice President, Violence Intervention and Prevention Services, UCAN Chicago, brings more than two decades of hands-on and executive leadership experience designing, implementing, and evaluating multidisciplinary strategies to prevent violence and disrupt cycles of retaliation. He currently serves as the executive leader of UCAN’s Violence Intervention and Prevention Services (VIPS) program, where he oversees a team of more than 100 staff delivering integrated, evidence-informed programming across several of Chicago’s highest-risk communities, including North Lawndale, East Garfield Park, Roseland, Riverdale, Burnside, and West Pullman. Grounded in both professional expertise and lived experience, Edwin is deeply committed to building trusted relationships between individuals and community assets to address trauma, enhance safety and resilience, expand opportunity, and improve the physical, social, and economic conditions of communities most impacted by gun violence.

About the Webinar Series: This event is part of a webinar series for researchers, community-based organizations, and other leaders in firearm violence prevention. Designed to strengthen the capacity, confidence, and visibility of those advancing solutions to prevent firearm-related violence, the program will feature sessions on:

• March 27, 1 pm | From Problem to Purpose: Choosing Research Questions That Drive Change in Firearm Violence Prevention 
• April 2026 | It’s Not Just What You Do – It’s How You Do It: Implementation Science for Firearm Violence Prevention
• June 2026 | Not Just a Report: Disseminating Firearm Violence Research for Impact

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