Who we are

Founded in 2004 in Berlin, Violence Prevention Network is one of Europe’s largest civil society organisations engaged in preventing and countering violent extremism. We work nationally and internationally, with over 120 practitioners, researchers and advisers in 10 regional offices across Germany and abroad.

Facilitating support informed by practitioners’ experiences

  • We have worked with over 3,700 individual cases of radicalised persons with different extremist backgrounds within prisons – and many more outside prison – to change violent behaviour and extremist mind-sets.
  • Violence Prevention Network pioneers solutions for multi-stakeholder partnerships to prevent and counter violent extremism. We work with, support and train public authorities, prison and probation services, police and security actors and civil society practitioners to facilitate effective prevention work.
  • Our unique case management process facilitates targeted cooperation between security and non-security stakeholders on a daily basis based on joint needs and risk assessments, security protocols, and effective communication and decision-making for tailored interventions.

Our vision and mission

We work to strengthen whole-of-society partnerships in the area of prevention, disengagement, deradicalisation, rehabilitation and reintegration – facilitating mutual learning and eye-to-eye cooperation among government agencies, local stakeholders, schools, refugee centres, civil society organisations and many more.

Whole-of-society approach

We are convinced that no state, organisation or individual can address violent extremism alone. It’s when a variety of actors come together to connect their ideas and resources in trusted collaboration that programmes for prevention of violent extremism can become effective and reliable – for partners, affected communities and the individuals that we work with.

Policy informed by practice

We work to empower first-line practitioners in playing an active role in the design, implementation and evaluation of multi-stakeholder efforts to address violent extremism. Integrating the experiences, voices and perspectives of practitioners more systematically in policy planning and programme design is key to make P/CVE efforts succeed in the implementation phase and reflect the needs on the ground.

Core Team

Jonathan Russell

International Director

Jonathan leads our international department, driving strategy, business, and product development. He is a subject matter expert in P/CVE, having led teams in this domain for over a decade, delivering terrorism prevention interventions in the public, private, and non-profit sectors.

Alexander Sievers

Programme Director – Practitioner

Alexander is a practitioner in the field of violence prevention and reintegration, implementing disengagement programmes and providing individual support for radicalised and at-risk individuals. His work involves developing and managing new training measures, workshops, and seminars, delivering training for professionals in correctional services and probation, and engaging with target groups through outreach work both online and offline. Alexander is also the Programme Director of INDEX – International Network for Disengagement and Exit, which aims to be the first global professional association for tertiary prevention practitioners in P/CVE.

Julia Nowecki

Director VPN Academy – Practitioner

Julia Nowecki is the director of the Violence Prevention Network Academy, where she develops and delivers trainings in various international contexts, on Social Diagnostics, online-offline referral pathways and disengagement approaches, to strengthen professional responses to radicalisation. She advises and supports Violence Prevention Network’s international department in quality assurance and training aspects. As a senior practitioner at Violence Prevention Network, she has previously led the Advice Centre Saxony, supporting individuals disengaging from violent extremism. She has over ten years of experience in youth work and in training as well as counselling professionals in education, mental health, law enforcement, and correctional services.

Rebecca Visser

Project Manager

Rebecca focuses on prevention of extremist/terrorist behaviour in online spaces. She manages Violence Prevention Network’s international work and contributes to numerous projects. Within these, she leads tech and government stakeholders’ engagement, coordinates capacity-building trainings, and supports the piloting of new Trust & Safety interventions.

Chloe Walsh

Project Manager

Chloe is an experienced project manager in the P/CVE space, having worked towards the prevention of violence with the Home Office, European Union, Department of Homeland Security and the Mayors office for Policing and Crime.

Chris Burdack

Financial Project Manager

Chris works in Financial Management and Acquisition, where he contributes to the mobilisation of project funding and the preparation of proposals, based on his former experience working with international and civil society organisations. He manages cooperations with agencies at the European and international level and develops project concepts in the field of P/CVE.

Ella Goldschmied

Project Assistant

Ella holds a BSc in Political Science from the University of Amsterdam, where she focused on online extremism and international security. Her research focused on the violent rhetoric of far-right groups on Quora and the impact of conspiratorial narratives in the US. She supports our work within various projects.

Adele Westerhuis

Project Assistant

Adele is an MA student at King’s College London, studying Conflict, Security and Development. Before joining Violence Prevention Network, she worked at the Global Center on Cooperative Security where she conducted research and supported the implementation of programmes on a range of issues related to preventing/countering violent extremism and terrorism, including multilateral counterterrorism policy and countering the financing of terrorism. Adele holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Boston University. She is supporting INDEX – International Network for Disengagement and Exit.

Advisers

Judy Korn

Senior Adviser

Judy is co-founder and managing director of Violence Prevention Network and operates as a special adviser to our international projects. She brings two decades of experience in areas such as right-wing extremism, prison-exit continuum and lobbying with excellent connections into national and European authorities and institutions.

Cornelia Lotthammer

Head of Communications

Cornelia is head of communication at Violence Prevention Network. She brings over two decades of experience in working on communication concepts for civil society organisations both off- and online. Her focus lies especially on extremism, conspiracy narratives and language related issues such as framing and gender.

Maximilian Campos Ruf

Senior Adviser

Maximilian is the co-director of Violence Prevention Network’s research department, leading our efforts to improve the collaboration between research and practice in P/CVE. As part of our engagement in the EU Knowledge Hub on Prevention of Radicalisation he is a permanent member of Panel 1 “Ideologies and Conspiracy Narratives”. His current research focus lies on individual processes of disengagement and deradicalisation with the aim to improve evidence-based approaches to practical work and evaluation in this field.

Ariane Wolf

Senior Adviser

Ariane advises on our work in international networking, projects, strategic development and consultancies. Her thematic focusses include practice-based policy advice and impact assessment, gender, misogyny and extremism and exit programmes in prison and probation.

Our partners