Western professor appointed to Order of Canada
Faculty of Education professor Peter Jaffe, who holds cross appointments in the departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, has been named an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Jaffe, Academic Director of Western’s Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women & Children, was named to the Order of Canada for Social Service, “for his influential work and extensive voluntarism in improving the response of Canada’s legal, educational and social service systems to family violence and the abuse of women and children.”
“This is an incredible honour for me personally, and it is quite overwhelming,” says Jaffe. “What means even more is that the award represents recognition for the importance of the work that many are doing to end domestic violence and child abuse.”
Jaffe has co-authored nine books, 24 chapters and more than 70 articles related to children, families and the justice system.
“Peter has been a longstanding pioneer in the area of domestic violence prevention, working with courts, police and others, from both an applied and research perspective,” says David Wolfe, honourary professor at Western and RBC Chair in Children’s Mental Health at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. “This is an honour well-deserved that underlines the importance of work in this area.”
Jaffe’s accomplishments are many:
- He has been a school trustee since 1980 with the London Board of Education (now the Thames Valley District School Board) and he has twice served as its Chairperson - in 1988 and 2000.
- Before coming to Western, Jaffe was Director of the Family Court Clinic, now the Centre for Children and Families in the Justice System, for 27 years. He continues as Director Emeritus.
- Jaffe is a founding member of the Ontario Domestic Violence Death Review Committee. Since 2002, this multidisciplinary committee has worked through the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario, reviewing domestic homicides.
- Between 1991 and 1993, he served as a member of the Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women.
“Peter has brought the issue of violence, its impact and prevention into the public consciousness,” says Western’s Dean of Education Julia O’Sullivan. “His students in the Faculty of Education are the educators and educational leaders of tomorrow. They will take what they have learned from him and use it to make a difference in the lives of people around the world, just as Peter has. What a legacy.”
