Elena Campbell

Elena has worked in legal and social policy and research for over 25 years. Elena has deep expertise in gender-based violence, with a particular focus on interventions with people using violence, as well as on the experiences of children and young people. She has recently joined the Australian Institute of Family Studies as Child & Family Safety Theme Head and is leading work focused on understanding national progress on the prevention and elimination of violence against women and children.

Previously at the Centre for Innovative Justice at RMIT University for 14 years, Elena oversaw a program of research which focused on the relationship between people's experiences of trauma and their contact with legal processes. This included work in the areas of family, domestic and sexual violence, as well as young people's and women's contact with the criminal justice system. In this capacity, Elena led projects for Government departments and courts to support the implementation of recommendations from Victoria’s Royal Commission into Family Violence and was Chief Investigator in ANROWS funded projects focusing on interventions with adults using family violence. In addition, she also led a program of research focusing on young people’s experiences of trauma, as well as the use of violence at home, including the capacity of legal and service systems to respond to the complexity of need across families and communities.

Prior to this, Elena worked as a legal adviser and staffer in the Victorian Government for over a decade and also worked as a consultant to a range of social policy, justice and reform organisations, including the Australian Human Rights Commission.