. . . is an ordained United Methodist pastor who has worked extensively in the field of domestic and sexual violence and elder abuse since 1984.  Anne Marie earned a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School and a Ph.D. in Religion and Society from Drew University. While attending Harvard and Drew, she worked for two domestic violence service providers: Harbor Me in East Boston, MA and Jersey Battered Women’s Services in Morristown, NJ. Anne Marie also served for six years as the pastor of a United Methodist Church in Massachusetts.

​

It was in 1991 that Anne Marie linked her pastoral, seminary, and domestic violence services experience to found Safe Havens Interfaith Partnership Against Domestic Violence and Elder Abuse. Anne Marie and her co-founders, a group of faith-affiliated friends, designed Safe Havens to be a religiously diverse nonprofit that worked locally to strengthen partnerships between diverse faith communities and domestic violence service providers. They started out by raising awareness in the Greater Boston area. They soon discovered the need for more in-depth training, so they developed the Family Violence Prevention Project, a program for teams of faith leaders (both clergy and lay) that connected them to experts in the field. The faith-based teams learned from domestic violence and sexual assault service providers, law enforcement, child witness to violence programs, batterers' intervention programs, hospital-based programs, and more. The goal was, and continues to be, to empower people of faith through education, advocacy, technical assistance, and resources to respond compassionately, safely, and effectively to survivors of domestic violence, to take part in a coherent, community-wide response, to help to hold perpetrators accountable, and to work for long-term social change. It was this program that caught the eye of the Office on Violence Against Women at the U.S. Department of Justice. 

​

In 2004, under Anne Marie's guidance, Safe Havens became a National Technical Assistance Provider for the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW). Anne Marie and Safe Havens adapted its local training model for a national audience, and has presented this training in 47 communities across the U.S. Through Anne Marie's vision, Safe Havens' work now strengthens community-based responses to intimate partner violence as well as sexual violence, dating violence, and elder abuse. 

​

Anne Marie has taught at Drew University and Tufts University and is the recipient of the 2010 Lenny P. Zakim Humanitarian Award given by the New England Region of the Anti-Defamation League. In addition, she received the R.O.S.E. Foundation’s 2002 R.O.S.E. Award, which is given annually to “a woman who has demonstrated indomitable determination in overcoming the challenges associated with being a victim of domestic violence . . . [and] who has also gone on to success and independence that can inspire others.” The Commonwealth of Massachusetts also recognized Anne Marie as an "Unsung Heroine" in 2011. 

​

Anne Marie believes that faith communities have a unique and critically important role to play in providing holistic support to survivors of abuse and building a world in which abuse is unthinkable. Anne Marie has guided Safe Havens and its work to build an interfaith movement that supports survivors of abuse and works for a world where no one has to choose between faith and safety.