Jeff halvorsen
is a PhD candidate at the University of Calgary Faculty of Social Work on Blackfoot and Treaty Seven territory and an uninvited settler on T’sou-ke territory. He is studying white men’s allyship focused on anti-domestic violence, anti-racism and anti-colonization. He has 17 years experience in a community based settings working with individuals experiencing family violence and abuse, homelessness, and leaving sex work/exploitation and has been a credentialed evaluator with the Canadian Evaluation Society for three years. His research interest is in social justice, ally roles, masculinities, whiteness, and anti-oppressive practice.
liza lorenzetti
- Liza was born in Montréal, traditional Six Nations territory - Mohawk or Kanien’kehá:ka land and have been living in Calgary for many years, traditional land of the Blackfoot and Treaty 7 people. Her extended family network arrived in Canada over the period of what is known as three historical waves of Italian migration to Québec and Canada. She lives in an intercultural and multilingual family with her partner Arya Boustani, who is from Iran, our daughter Parisa. We belong to an extended family-community.
Her teaching, research, and community practice center on anti-oppression, peacebuilding and social justice. She firmly believes in the interconnectedness of human rights and our ecology, and the importance of doing one’s own personal work as the root of social transformation. Liza has worked in many areas of social work activism. Her experiences include individual, family and group counseling; program & organization development and coordination, community development and movement-building. Some of the organizations that she has worked with are the Sheriff King Women’s Shelter, Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association, the City of Calgary, Social Workers for Social Justice, Peace Calgary and YMCA Entre-Temps and Dans La Rue in Montreal.
willem tabak
Willem Tabak is the current coordinator for Alberta Mens Network. He is a registered social worker with the province of Alberta, and an undergraduate from the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary. Will started in the assistant coordinator role and as a community mobilizer, helping to spread knowledge of AMN and making events accessible for the community. Willem takes an active role in the community-based Participatory Action Research (PAR) that AMN leads in partnership with the University of Calgary.
In addition to his role with AMN, Willem works full time with high-risk youth in Child and Youth Care which brings a frontline perspective to his work in the community. Willem is passionate about the work AMN is facilitating and sees a gap in services for men and the community to foster and maintain healthy relationships. Having spent years in an unrelated field before making the change to Social Work, Willem is able to bring a vast array of knowledge to his work with AMN.
Sarah Thomas (she/her)
is a recent graduate from the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary. Having completed her BSW, Sarah now works within the Faculty of Social Work as a research assistant as well as program co-coordinator for Alberta Men’s Network. Her work focuses on anti-racism, masculinity, and gender-based violence prevention. Sarah’s current areas of research interest include gender justice, strategies for men’s well-being, and ally work.