PRESENTED BY: Dr Myrna Dawson, University of Guelph, Canada

With the growing awareness that domestic homicides are often preventable, several countries, including Australia, have begun to implement domestic violence death review teams. Through comprehensive reviews of these killings, primarily of women, these teams identify risk factors, detail circumstances leading up to and surrounding the killings, and make recommendations to improve community and systemic responses so as to enhance future opportunities for violence intervention and prevention. In 2002, Ontario, Canada established the first such committee in their country. Since then, over 100 cases have been reviewed and recommendations have targeted multiple sectors. In this seminar, trends and patterns in domestic homicide in Canada will be described, followed by key findings of the Ontario Domestic Violence Death Review Committee, including primary risk factors, recommendations for improvements across sectors as well as the benefits and challenges of implementing and conducting reviews.