Dr. CarolAnn Peterson

About Dr. CarolAnn Peterson

Being a domestic abuse expert and teaching a course on domestic abuse is not where I thought my career would take me. In high school, I had every intention of being an actress; I thought I would be another Helen Hayes and star on Broadway. Then after 2 years of taking acting lessons, doing auditions, and working to make ends meet, I thought, “I don’t want to be another starving actress and 20 years later still waiting for my big break.”

Then I met the man of my dreams; or so I thought. Because he came from old line money of Los Angeles and his father was a high profile attorney for one of the largest law firms in Los Angeles – I thought I was Cinderella. However, I soon discovered that this was not the dream relationship I thought it was. Since the family was very prominent, there were never ever going to be bruises or broken bones. It took approximately 4 years for me get out of this relationship. However, he did encourage me to go to college. Being at the height of the women’s movement, I found my voice. While working on my bachelor’s degree, I fell in love with political science. As my mother put it, I found a different stage.

MY WORK

After working for 5 years, some of those years working on political campaigns… including Women Running Against Reagan (working for the National Organization for Women on the Mondale/Ferraro campaign), I became the registered lobbyist for the California Federation of Business and Professional Women. While working for the Federation, I worked with then State Legislator Lucille Roybal-Allard on one of the first spousal rape bills in the country. At the time, no one in Sacramento knew that I was a survivor of abuse. When it came time to bring the legislation to the first committee, I volunteered to tell my story. At then end of my testimony, there was one legislator who said he was sorry this happened to me but didn’t believe a husband raped a wife. I was so livid that when I returned to Los Angeles, I called the Los Angeles County Domestic Violence Council to ask what they did. They had just formed the Legislation Committee and I was asked to chair the committee. I had the good fortune to chair this committee for 6 years and work with the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to pass legislation on behalf of battered women in California.

Following this, I worked as a consultant on welfare reform for Los Angeles County. After two years in the position, I was asked by the Family Violence Prevention Fund (now Futures Without Violence) to work on welfare programs for victims of domestic violence at both the state and national level. I was privileged to work on this issue for 6 years. As the issue and contract was coming to an end, California passed legislation making it mandatory to have domestic violence classes in graduate schools of social work and psychology. I was then hired by the University of Southern California School of Social Work (now USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work). I was an adjunct faculty member for 14 years and an a full time lecturer. I taught courses on domestic violence, which I created.  A course on leadership, a course on policy and advocacy and a course on global violence against women.au

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