Kym Craven

Kym Craven is the executive director of the National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives and the director of the Public Safety Strategies Group LLC. Craven began her 36-year career at the Lowell, Massachusetts Police Department working in several areas including traffic safety, community engagement and grants management. 

During her career, Craven has assisted over 400 municipalities (such as San Francisco, Boston, New York City and Dallas), state agencies (such as Massachusetts and Vermont) and non-profits (such as the IACP, Major Cities Chiefs and Massachusetts Chief of Police) in reaching their programmatic and organization goals. She specializes in facilitating and conducting organizational assessments; providing strategic planning assistance; increasing recruitment and retention; developing surveys; designing officer safety and wellness programs; creating violence reduction strategies and dashboards; launching co-responder programs; analyzing call for service data; providing staffing analysis; reviewing internal investigations, aligning police district boundary with community needs; writing and managing grants; along with helping agencies implement strategies to build trust with and engage communities.  Her passion for ensuring diversity, equity and inclusion in law enforcement, both internally and externally, is reflected in the guidance she provides to agencies. 

For a number of years, Craven was a trusted consultant to the District 6 Mutual Aid Association. In this capacity, she helped fire and EMS agencies analyze data, develop run strategies, understand staffing needs, design recruitment campaigns, design training, develop grant proposals and assist with public safety design strategies. To help agencies adjust to growth she developed strategies and plans to address the comprehensive needs of the communities. Craven helped agencies transition from fully call agencies to those will full-time staffing. For the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, Craven developed performance metrics for all the state-level public safety agencies including the Massachusetts State Police and the Massachusetts Department of Fire Services. For the Department of Fire Services, she was an instructor for the Chief Fire Officer Class and developed the statewide fire mobilization strategy that included a deployment strategy of personnel and staffing across the Commonwealth for several New England-based agencies she designed their staffing and apparatus plans. For the Boston Urban Area Initiative, she coordinated the Fire Services Center of Excellence which determined staffing and training needs for a seven-community region to include the City of Boston and its surrounds. 

As the Executive Director of NAWLEE, Craven is actively involved in many initiatives to increase the number of women in law enforcement, retain the women already working in agencies and provide support through mentoring, training, and developing recruitment strategies. Two projects Craven assists with through RTI subgrants include the From Research to Reality research on women in policing and the ASPIRE project which is focused on career pathways. She is a Subject Matter Expert for the VALOR Project and recently served on a panel at IACP on the topic of Stressors for Women in Law Enforcement. 

NAWLEE is a co-founding partner of the 30×30 Initiative and Craven is a member of the Steering Committee that helped to design the pledge and strategies for the effort. She has spoken at numerous conferences on the topic and has helped countless agencies refine their recruitment strategies.  

Craven is a subject matter expert for the Collaborative Reform Initiative – Technical Assistance Center, and Elevate Blue. As its director, Craven is a subject matter expert to the Department of Justice on recruitment, hiring and retention through both the CRI-TAC and Elevate Blue projects.  She often speaks at national conferences both here in the US and across the globe.  The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) just published an article she co-authored with RTI, on the topic of recruitment and retention of women in law enforcement. In August of 2023, the IACP published another article she co-authored on Mentoring. Through her research, she has amassed information on what is working for retention.  She is recognized internationally for her expertise and has taught on the topic in Iceland, Dubai, and Sub-Saharan Africa. 

Craven is a subject matter expert for the Collaborative Reform Initiative – Technical Assistance Center, and Elevate Blue. In addition, she represents NAWLEE on the National Suicide Alliance, and the Faith and Blue Weekend Consortium.  

Craven holds a bachelor of science degree in criminal justice from the University of Lowell and a master of arts in criminal justice from Anna Maria College. A former police officer, Craven holds certificates in community policing, leadership facilitation, incident command, vulnerability assessments, emergency response planning, terrorism threat assessment and numerous other criminal justice programs.