TEST The 35th Annual San Diego International Conference on Child and Family Maltreatment

Keynote Speaker

Kristina Giovanetti

Kevin McNeil, MA

CEO/Founder

The Twe12e Project

Kevin McNeil is a Motivational Speaker, abuse activists, and the CEO of the Twe12e Project, an organization that educates the world on the effects of abuse on individuals, families, and communities. Kevin’s passion is helping others heal from the effects of abuse. He is a renowned speaker who shares lessons from his own life experiences that can transform, motivate, and inspire an individual’s mindset and potential. Kevin is a consultant whose mission is to “motivate change in the world through abuse education,” and whose vision is to “create a better tomorrow for today’s children.”

Kevin retired from the DeKalb County Police Department after 20 years. He served twelve years as a Special Victims Unit Detective, and eight years as a Police Officer. His training and attention to detail helped him solve several high-profile serial rape cases in the Atlanta area. Kevin’s background coupled with his extensive research on trauma and the effects of abuse, defines and differentiates his message. He travels across the country speaking on topics relevant to Child Advocacy Centers, Police Departments, Department of Family and Children Services, District Attorney Offices, athletic organzations, schools and universities, parents and foster parents, as well as community members. Kevin has appeared on numerous radio, television, and podcast programs, and has been featured in several magazine articles.

In addition to law enforcement training, Kevin obtained his Master of Divinity Degree from the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia. He is the author of six published books, several of which empower others to live out their God-given purpose. Kevin’s talks reveal a positive, practical, and strategic approach to support others in realizing their biggest dreams and potential. He motivates individuals to draw closer to their strength through his books, workshop trainings, business coaching, character refinement, and with honest, confident, and respectful communication

Donna Pence, BA

Practice Improvement Consultant

Pence-Wilson Training & Consulting, Inc.

Donna M. Pence was appointed as a Special Agent with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation in 1976 after two years with the Metropolitan Nashville Park Police. In her 25 years with the Bureau, she worked undercover, special crimes, and field investigations. She was designated as the Bureau's child abuse investigation specialist in 1986 and helped develop the first MDT protocols and train the first multidisciplinary child abuse investigation teams in Tennessee. In retirement, she joined the Academy for Professional Excellence, San Diego State University, as a master trainer and curriculum specialist. Donna has authored or co-authored numerous articles and book chapters including, TEAM INVESTIGATION OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE: THE UNEASY ALLIANCE with Charles A. Wilson, "Child Abuse Neglect Investigation" (3rd ed. of The APSAC Child Maltreatment Handbook), "Trauma-Informed Forensic Child Maltreatment Investigations" in Child Welfare, co-authored "Trauma-Informed Care" for the International Encyclopedia of Social Work and "Multidisciplinary Teaming" with Charles Wilson (4th ed. of the APSAC Child Maltreatment Handbook). She has trained professionals in 38 states and 8 countries on MDI team development and maintenance, cultural issues for professionals, trauma-informed investigative practices, Secondary Traumatic Stress, critical thinking and decision-making, investigative interviewing and investigative issues in child maltreatment and fatalities. Donna has also been a consultant for agencies such as the Los Angeles Department of Child and Family Services, and an expert witness in civil cases.

Peter Samuelson, MA

Producer, Executive, Founder

Film Associates Inc. dba Samuelson Productions

Peter Samuelson has been described as a “serial pro-social entrepreneur”. In 1982, inspired by a little boy battling an inoperable brain tumor, Peter conceived the Starlight Children’s Foundation-an international charity dedicated to granting wishes for seriously ill children. Starlight has grown to offer eight core psycho-social programs, each restoring some of the laughter, happiness and self-esteem that serious illness takes away from kids and those who love them.

As parents and healthcare providers confirmed the positive psychological and often medical impact of Starlight programming, in 1990 Peter brought together leaders including Steven Spielberg and General Norman Schwarzkopf to create the STARBRIGHT Foundation-a charity dedicated to developing media and technology-based programs to educate and empower children to cope with the medical, emotional and social challenges of their illness. In 2004, Starlight and STARBRIGHT merged and became the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation, with offices in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, Japan and the United States. Peter Samuelson serves as its International Chairman.

In 1999, Peter founded First Star, a separate national charity headquartered in Washington, D.C. that works to improve the public health, safety, and family life of America’s abused and neglected children. With Peter as President, First Star provides “top-down” systemic leadership to provide quality and compassionate care for children within the child welfare system, basic civil and legal rights for every child and safe, stable and permanent homes for all children.
In 2005, Peter founded EDAR, “Everyone Deserves A Roof” to develop and widely distribute a mobile single-user structure which in the daytime serves as a purpose-built recycling vehicle while at night time transforming into a comfortable tented bed enclosure.

Peter is a graduate of Cambridge University with a Masters in English Literature and the fourth of five family generations employed in the film industry. After serving as production manager on films such as The Return of the Pink Panther, he emigrated from England to Los Angeles and produced Revenge of the Nerds, Tom & Viv, Wilde, Arlington Road and many other films. Peter also serves on the Advisory Board of Participant Media Inc., Jeff Skoll’s pro-social media company.

Suzanne P. Starling, MD

Rady Children's Hospital- San Diego

Suzanne Starling is Associate Center Director and Medical Director of the Chadwick Center for Children and Families at Rady Children’s Hospital –San Diego, and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California San Diego. She is a board certified Child Abuse Pediatrician and has spent her career collaborating with investigators and attorneys to improve the investigation and prosecution of child abuse, regularly providing expert medical testimony in child abuse cases. Dr. Starling also lectures nationally and internationally for medical, investigative, and legal audiences. Dr. Starling has served as a leader in Child Abuse Pediatrics for many years. She helped shape the direction of the field as a past chair of the American Board of Pediatrics’ subboard on Child Abuse Pediatrics. Dr. Starling also is a past chair of the Executive Committee of the Section on Child Abuse of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She served many years as co-medical director of the Telehealth Institute for Child Maltreatment, a technological initiative that provides anonymous, HIPAA compliant, internet-based educational and quality improvement services. Starling has authored more than 40 journal articles and book chapters in the field, as well as edited the well-respected textbook Medical Response to Child Sexual Abuse. Her most recent research involves the use of peer review as a quality improvement initiative for the diagnosis and documentation of child sexual abuse.

Speakers

George Ake, PhD

Training and Implementation Program Director

Duke-UCLA National Center for Child Traumatic Stress

George (Tripp) Ake, PhD, is a licensed psychologist with over 20 years of experience in the field of child trauma treatment. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University Medical Center and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine. Dr. Ake is also the program director for the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, the coordinating center for the SAMSHA-funded National Child Traumatic Stress Network. He serves as the Co-Director of Training at the Center for Child & Family Health.

Dr. Ake provides trauma treatment services at CCFH and supervises many of the psychology postdoctoral fellows and interns from Duke and UNC who provide services in the mental health clinic. He has extensive experience in providing trauma focused mental health treatment to children and adults and is becoming more well known for his work in using implementation science to guide selection, onboarding, and sustaining evidence-based treatments typically used to target symptoms secondary to trauma exposure in children. Dr. Ake’s research and training interests currently focus on implementation science, interpersonal violence, and trauma-informed child welfare practice.

Areas of Focus: Trauma-Informed Organization/Practice, Trauma Screening and Assessment, Parent- Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), Resource Parenting Curriculum (RPC), Child Welfare Trauma Training Toolkit

Katie Albright, JD

Chief Executive Officer

Safe & Sound

Katie Albright, JD, (CE0 of Safe & Sound) is an attorney and children’s advocate with more than twenty-five years of legal and non-profit experience. She started her career teaching and creating a preschool in Nairobi, Kenya -- where she learned the importance of community joining together to improve the lives of children.

Katie has served as the Chief Executive Officer of Safe & Sound for over a decade, joining the organization when it was called the San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center. Expanding its reach and impact under her leadership, the organization co-founded the Children’s Advocacy Center of San Francisco, The Center for Youth Wellness, and Partners in Prevention, and has created strong partnerships in Marin and Sonoma County, as well as other counties throughout the Bay Area.

Under her leadership, the organization has received numerous awards including the Platinum Seal of Transparency from GuideStar, and top-level marks from Charity Navigator. Katie’s prior experiences include serving as San Francisco Deputy City Attorney representing the county’s public schools; San Francisco Education Fund Policy Director leading a campaign to improve teacher quality and increase student retention; and, Preschool California Co-Director of Policy & Outreach campaigning statewide for universal preschool. Prior to serving as an associate at Latham & Watkins and clerking for the United States District Court in Maryland, she worked at the Counsel for Child Abuse and Neglect and ABA Center on Children and the Law in Washington, D.C.

Katie earned her Bachelor of Arts in History graduating with honors from Williams College and Juris Doctorate as a Public Interest Law Scholar graduating cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center. She is an inaugural Ascend Fellow with The Aspen Institute advancing a national two-generation approach to end poverty; received a Social Entrepreneurship SEER Fellowship at Stanford University co-teaching on non-profit management and social entrepreneurship. Katie has received the Child 10 Award, recognizing her work internationally, and the League of Women Voters San Francisco Woman Who Could Be President Award, recognizing her work locally.

She serves as a chair of the Board of Trustees of San Francisco University High School. She is an advisor to Freedom FWD seeking to end human trafficking, and Studio Samuel educating girls in Ethiopia. She previously served on the boards of NARAL Pro-Choice America, NARAL Pro-Cho

Randy Alexander, MD, PhD

Dr.

University of Florida – Jacksonville

Randell Alexander, MD, PhD is Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Florida, Chief of the Division of Child Protection and Forensic Pediatrics. He is the Board Chair of the Academy on Violence and Abuse. He is on the International Advisory Board for the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome and has been on the Board of Councilors for the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. He served as Vice-chair of the US Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, was on the Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect for the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the boards of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC) and Prevent Child Abuse America (formerly the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse). Randy has served on state and local child death review committees in Iowa, Georgia and Florida. He was chair of the Committee on Child Abuse for the Georgia and Iowa chapters of the American Academy of Pediatrics and currently chairs the Committee in Florida. He has extensive interests in all forms of child abuse, particularly shaken baby syndrome, Munchausen syndrome by proxy, prevention, and child death review. Randy has authored numerous articles, chapters, and books and lectures frequently in the US and other countries.

Sandra Alexander, MED

Child Maltreatment Consultant

SciMetrika/ CDC

Sandra is a recognized national leader, strategic thinker, and innovator in child abuse prevention with over 49 years’ experience in the public and private sector. Her early experience as a caseworker and supervisor in child protective services, adoption and foster care has helped inform her prevention work. Her leadership experience includes serving as Executive Director of two Prevent Child Abuse America state chapters. For the past fourteen years, she has provided subject matter expertise in the Division of Violence Prevention (DVP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) including nine years in the position of Expert Consultant and more recently as a Child Maltreatment Consultant in a contract position. At CDC, she has provided leadership for several key child maltreatment prevention initiatives including DVP's BECAUSE KIDS COUNT initiative, Knowledge to Action Child Maltreatment Prevention Consortium, a cross-division shaken baby prevention initiative and the Essentials for Childhood initiative. She was a member of the team who developed DVP’s recent Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect: A Technical Package for Policy, Norm and Programmatic Activities. She currently serves as a member of the DVP policy and partnership team and is a leader in engaging the business sector and other key partners in prevention. She is a member of the National Coalition to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation, the Federal Interagency Work Group on Child Abuse and Neglect, the Prevent Child Abuse America Program/Research/Program Committee, the Prevent Child Abuse Georgia Advisory Committee and the GA DFCS State of HOPE Advisory Council. She is a past board president of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC) and currently serves on the APSAC Prevention Committee. She is the former chair and current prevention advocate of the Atlanta Fulton County Child Fatality Review Committee. She has developed numerous prevention programs, provided training on prevention nationally and internationally, served as a prevention voice for local and national media and authored several book chapters on prevention.

Marta Anderson, LCSW

Vice President

The New York Foundling

Marta Anderson, LCSW has a Master’s in Social Work from Hunter College and began her work in child welfare with The New York Foundling in September 2008. Marta began at NY Foundling in the Queens General Preventive Program before joining the North Manhattan STEPS program, which had recently converted to the Functional Family Therapy Theraputic Case Management (FFT-TCM) Model. While working in the North Manhattan STEPS Program Marta held the positions of Therapists, Senior Therapist, and Clinical Supervisor. During this time Marta completed the Functional Family Therapy Externship training, Therapist Supervisory training, Contingency Management training and Interventionist Consultation Training. Marta supported the implementation of the FFT-TCM Model as the following NY Foundling programs converted from General Preventive Services to the Evidence Informed Model of FFT-TCM; Bronx STEPS, Queens STEPS and Staten Island/Brooklyn STEPS. Beginning in 2012 Marta became an internal NY Foundling FFT-TCM Interventionist Consultant and provided weekly Consultation to NY Foundling’s Queens STEPS program. Marta also supported advanced clinical trainings of FFT and FFT-TCM held at NY Foundling, including Externship and Interventionist Supervisor Training. In 2013 Marta was promoted to the Assistant Vice President of the North Manhattan STEPS while continuing to provide internal Interventionist Consultation. In 2015 Marta transitioned to become the Assistant Vice Present of the Bronx STEPS program which has the capacity to serve 455 families per year. In 2015 Marta also assumed the role of an internal Trainer and Consultant in the Functional Family Therapy- Contingency Management adaptation and continues to provide Contingency Management clinical training and consultation for all FFT and FFT-TCM staff at NY Foundling. In March 2016 Marta became the Vice President of Prevention, overseeing all NY Foundling’s FFT-TCM programs which have the capacity to serve over 2,000 families per year. In March 2018 Marta took on the role as Vice President over NY Foundling’s Family Foster Care Programs, before moving on to the role of Vice President of the Implementation Support Center.

Funlola Are, MA

Predoctoral Intern

Medical University of South Carolina

Funlola Are, M.S. is a Clinical Psychology Ph.D. candidate at the University of Georgia who
is currently completing her predoctoral internship at the Medical University of South Carolina
(MUSC). She will begin a postdoctoral fellowship at MUSC in the Fall of 2019. Funlola’s
research interests are two- fold and include (a) understanding the risk and sequelae of child
maltreatment through the study of associated familial processes and (b) developing and
refining models for implementing evidence-based trauma interventions in publicly funded
youth service sectors (e.g. child welfare, juvenile justice).

Else-Marie Augusti, PhD

Senior researcher

Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies

Else-Marie Augusti has a PhD in psychology, and is currently a senior researcher at the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies. Dr. Augusti’s field of expertise is on the cognitive development associated with ACE. More specifically, Augusti has conducted research on the interaction between emotion, executive functions and memory in children with and without ACE. Her research covers children from the age of four and into adolescence. Methodologically, Augusti has mainly used experimental research design as her means of study the above mentioned topics. As part of her doctoral and post-doctoral training she has been involved in all parts of the respective projects, from planning and conducting studies to the writing up of the results. In addition, Augusti has participated in a several other studies during her training, allowing for a wide range of research experience within the field of ACE and development.

Gia Barboza, PhD; JD

Northeastern U

Gia Elise Barboza is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cultures, Societies and Global Studies at Northeastern University. Dr. Barboza received her B.A. in Anthropology (1995), J.D. in Law (2000), and Ph.D. in Political Methodology (2007) from Michigan State University. Dr. Barboza is an attorney who has worked in the courts as an advocate supporting domestic violence victims navigate the legal and criminal justice system. Dr. Barboza’s research interests revolve mainly around the manifestation of violence across the lifespan from childhood to old age. Her work focuses exploring the multiple contextual influences of risk including trauma, and substance abuse on manifestations of interpersonal violence (e.g., abuse, adolescent bullying, suicide attempts) and neglect in vulnerable populations (children, adolescents, LGBT populations and the elderly).

Dr. Barboza often utilizes large longitudinal, nationally representative datasets using quasi-experimental and longitudinal research designs and methodologies, such as Growth Mixture Modeling, Parallel Process Modeling, and Bayesian Space-Time modeling techniques. Dr. Barboza’s research has been published in Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Child Abuse & Neglect, Child Maltreatment, Children and Youth Services Review, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Preventive Medicine, Youth & Society, and the Journal of Urban Health among others. Dr. Barboza has also obtained internal university-level research grants, as well as a multiple foundation grants from the United Way and State Street to evaluate a comprehensive pathways program for the prevention and intervention of youth violence in Boston, Massachusetts. In her role as Director of Research for a non-profit, Dr. Barboza was a co-author of the Promise Neighborhoods Grant and has worked on many federally funded grants as a research assistant.

Julie Beauchesne, JD

Judge

Court of Quebec

Darneshia Bell, BS

SENIOR TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE SPECIALIST, QUALITY IMPROVEMENT CENTER FOR COMMUNITY COLLABORATIVE COURT

ZERO TO THREE/National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families

Pascale Berardino, JD, MBA

Judge

Court of Quebec

Since 2001, I have been working in youth protection law. At first as a lawyer representing the Director of Youth Protection, then as the legal counsel for the Provincial Association of Youth Centers, then back to the law department where I started as a young lawyer, as the Director for legal affairs at Batshaw Youth and Familiy Centers.

In recent years, I have been appointed as the Director for Children's Rights at the Provincial Ombudsman office (Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse).

More recently, in May 2017, I was appointed as a judge for the Youth chamber of the Quebec Provincial Court. I sit on the bench in Granby and Cowansville for the Bedfort district of Quebec Canada. I hear young offenders as well as youth protection cases.

Lucy Berliner, MSW, HCSATS

Director, Clinical Associate Professor

Lucy Berliner serves as Director of the Harborview Center for Sexual Assault and Traumatic Stress and is a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Washington School of Social Work and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Her activities include clinical practice with child and adult victims of trauma and crime; research on the impact of trauma and the effectiveness of clinical and societal interventions; and participation in local and national social policy initiatives to promote the interests of trauma and crime victims. Ms. Berliner is on the editorial boards of leading journals concerned with interpersonal violence, has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and has served/serves on local and national boards of organizations, programs, and professional societies.

Thomas Biesty, JD

Cook County State's Attorney

Cook County State's Attorney's Office

Supervisor, Cold Case Homicide Unit, Cook County State's Attorney's Office, Investigation Bureau, Illinois (retired).
For the past four years Tom has been an instructor for NCJTC in various class including Child Homicide, Cold Case Homicide and Major Case Investigations. Mr. Biesty was an accomplished and well-respected attorney and leader in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office with a 26 year record of prosecutorial excellence. He has an extensive trial experience across a wide spectrum of cases including many first-time prosecutions for the State of Illinois. For 15 years Tom was a Supervisor in Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in Chicago, IL. Some of his responsibilities include, but are not limited to, coordinating investigations among various law enforcement agencies and applying new methods and science to solve cold case crimes. Tom has been the recipient of numerous awards in 2015 and 2013 the Award of Excellence from the Illinois Homicide Investigators Association.

Julia Blomberg, MS

SafeCare Colorado Program Manager

Colorado Department of Human Services - Office of Early Childhood

Julia Blomberg is the Program Manager for SafeCare Colorado at the Office of Early Childhood with the Colorado Department of Human Services. In 2013, the internationally recognized, evidence-based home visiting program, SafeCare, was implemented in Colorado as part of former Governor John Hickenlooper’s child welfare plan. Ms. Blomberg has overseen and been intimately involved in the sizeable implementation and rapid scale up of the SafeCare program in voluntary, preventative settings across the state. Ms. Blomberg began working for the State of Colorado in 2013, after 12 years of direct-service work within large, urban county child welfare systems in both Wisconsin and Colorado. Starting her career as a front line staff, Ms. Blomberg has a deep appreciation of the challenges faced by families, communities and systems working to make lasting changes so that all children can thrive and reach their full potential. Ms. Blomberg has a B.A. in Psychology and a M.S. in Educational Psychology.

Stephen Boos, MD

Associate Professor of Pediatrics

University of Massachusetts Medical School -- Baystate

Dr. Boos is the Medical Director of the Baystate Family Advocacy Center at Baystate Children's Hospital in Springfield MA. Dr. Boos is a board certified Child Abuse Pediatrician, and a member of the Ray E. Helfer Society. He is currently serving as Vice President of the society and is executive editor of The Child Abuse Medical Quarterly, a quarterly journal abstracting and commenting on the most important literature in child abuse medicine, a publication of the Ray E. Helfer Society.

Angie Boy, DrPH

Stephanie V. Blank Center for Safe and Healthy Children, Program Manager

Children's Health Care of Atlanta

Angie Boy, DrPH is the Program Manager for prevention and education at the Stephanie V. Blank Center for Safe and Healthy Children at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. In this role, she is responsible for overseeing the implementation of multiple projects related to child abuse and neglect including child sex trafficking, prevention of child sexual abuse, and mandated reporting of child abuse and neglect. Dr. Boy also sits on several state-level work groups including the statewide Human Trafficking Task Force, the Child Fatality Review Project, and the Child Protective Services Advisory Committee. She also works with other community organizations to address training and education needs around adverse childhood experiences. She has over 15 years of experience in the field of family violence and has a special interest in the impacts of family violence on mothers and their children.

Deanna Boys, M.A.

Research Manager

UC Davis Children's Hospital

Deanna Boys, MA earned her MA in Psychology from California State University where she studied the impact of maltreatment on children’s emotion regulation within the parent-child relationship. She is currently the Research Manager at the CAARE Center in the Pediatric Department of the UC Davis Children’s Hospital. She is currently involved in supporting and coordinating pieces of multiple grant funded projects including a SAMHSA funded project to provide a brief preventative intervention (PC-CARE) to newly placed foster children to help stabilize placements and a California Office of Emergency Services (CalOES) funded grant to provide universal services, mental health and advocacy to children and families experiencing homelessness. Her research interests span issues relating to the effects of maltreatment on children, cultural and linguistically competent treatment, children in foster care receiving evidence based treatment as well as evidence based treatment dissemination.

Doug Braun-Harvey, MA

Co-founder

The Harvey Institute, Inc.

Sexual health author, trainer and psychotherapist Douglas Braun-Harvey bridges sexual and mental health and facilitates organizational change. In 2013 Doug Braun-Harvey and Al Killen-Harvey co-founded The Harvey Institute, an international education, training, consulting and supervision service for improving health care through integration of sexual health. He teaches and trains nationally and internationally linking sexual health principles within drug and alcohol treatment, group psychotherapy, HIV prevention and treatment, and child maltreatment. Since 1993 he has been developing and implementing a sexual health based treatment approach for men with out of control sexual behavior (OCSB). His new book “Treating Out of Control Sexual Behavior: Rethinking Sex Addiction” written with co-author Michael Vigorito was published in 2015. Previous publications include “Sexual Health in Recovery: Professional Counselor’s Manual” (2011) and “Sexual Health in Drug and Alcohol Treatment: Group Facilitator’s Manual” (2009). Mr. Braun-Harvey is Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified Group Psychotherapist and Certified Sex Therapist. He is an alumni of the University of Minnesotta and is honored to be on their Advisory Board for the Program in Human Sexuality in which he is a founding donor of the Doug Braun-Harvey Fellowship in Compulsive Sexual Behavior. He has been providing individual and group therapy in his San Diego private practice since 1987.

To learn more visit:

www.sexualhealth.umn.edu/education-and-training/fellowships/doug-braun-harvey-fellowship

Colleen Brazil, MSW, LIMHP

Forensic Interview Program Manager

Project Harmony

Colleen Brazil is the Forensic Interview Program Manager at Project Harmony. She has been with Project Harmony since 2015 and supervises forensic interviewers as well as manages the intake process. Before Project Harmony, Brazil was the Clinical Director with Family Connections, Inc. in Council Bluffs from September 2014 – October 2015 and a forensic interviewer at Child’s Voice in Sioux Falls, SD from its inception in 1998 until August 2014 when she moved to Omaha.

Brazil has interviewed over 8,000 children regarding allegations of abuse or neglect. She has trained child protection workers, law enforcement officers and other multi-disciplinary team members throughout South Dakota. She is frequently called upon to provide consultation to these professionals. In addition, Brazil has mentored other forensic interviewers both at Child’s Voice and within South Dakota. She served as an expert witness in Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota courts regarding cases of child abuse. She previously worked in private practice with Lutheran Social Services performing child custody evaluations.

Brazil has a master’s degree in social work from the University of Nebraska at Omaha and she is an adjunct professor in their social work department.

Holly Bridenbaugh, LCSW

Child Abuse Interviewer

CARES NW

Holly Bridenbaugh, LCSW, received her MSW from Portland State University and has over 20 years’ experience working with children and families in the area of trauma and child maltreatment. She began working at CARES Northwest in 1998. She became a Child Interviewer in 2001 and has assessed over 1500 children for concerns of abuse and neglect. Over the years, Ms. Bridenbaugh developed expertise in working with and interviewing children with disabilities. In 2008, she co-authored and coordinated development of the curriculum, Project
Ability: Demystifying Disability in Child Abuse Interviewing. In 2017, Ms.
Bridenbaugh revised the Project Ability curriculum to create Project Ability: A Reference Guide for Interviewing Children with Disabilities. Ms. Bridenbaugh has presented trainings on disabilities and on interviewing best practices to local and national audiences. In 2018, Ms. Bridenbaugh joined the therapy team at CARES Northwest and began providing trauma specific treatment to children and families, again with special focus on working with children with disabilities.

John Briere, PhD

Professor of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences, Director USC-ATTC

University of Southern California, School of Medicine

John Briere, Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, and Center Director of the USC Adolescent Trauma Training Center of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. A past president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, he is recipient of the Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Science of Trauma Psychology from the American Psychological Association.
He is author or co-author of over 140 articles, chapters, and encyclopedia entries, 18 books (published or in progress), and 11 trauma-related psychological tests. He recently served on two federal panels for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: the Child Trauma and Opioid Use Expert Panel, and the Expert Panel to Address Preventing Suicide of Youth Exposed to Childhood Trauma/Adverse Childhood Experiences. His new book with Guilford Press is Treating risky and compulsive behavior in trauma survivors. His website address is johnbriere.com.

John Briere, PhD

Professor, Dept of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences

University of Southern California

John Briere, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, and Director of the USC Adolescent Trauma Training Center of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. He completed undergraduate, graduate, internship, and post-doctoral training at UCLA; California State University, Los Angeles; the University of Manitoba (Canada); University of California, Davis; and UCLA School of Medicine, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. A past president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, he is recipient of the Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Science of Trauma Psychology from the American Psychological Association, and the William N. Friedrich Lecturer: Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Child Psychology from the Mayo Clinic. He is author or co-author of over 140 articles and chapters, 15 books, and 9 trauma-related psychological tests. At USC, he teaches and consults in the burn unit, inpatient psychiatry, and emergency services. Dr. Briere’s newest book is Treating Risky and Compulsive Behaviors in Trauma Survivors (Guilford, 2018).

Lauren Burge, MD

Fellow, PGY-6

Baylor College of Medicine- Texas Children's Hospital

Lauren Burge, MD, is a senior fellow in Child Abuse Pediatrics at Texas Children’s Hospital. She graduated medical school at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and completed her pediatric residency at the University of Oklahoma. After graduation, she served as chief resident and as an Assistant Professor in Pediatrics at the University of Oklahoma. During this time, she served 2 years as a general pediatrician working mainly with foster children before moving to Houston for more training in Child Abuse Pediatrics. Her interests in the filed include community outreach with an emphasis on education and the prevention of child abuse. Dr. Burge has participated in numerous presentations both within the health professions and in the surrounding communities on topics such as the recognition and reporting of child maltreatment and adverse childhood experiences.

Kara Byrne, PhD

Assistant Research Professor

University of Utah, College of Social Work, Social Research Institute

Kara Byrne, PhD, CSW is an Assistant Research Professor at the Social Research Institute, College of Social Work, University of Utah. She is the research coordinator for the Pediatric Integrated Post-trauma Services (PIPS) project. Her research includes program evaluation in child welfare and juvenile justice settings, as well as facilitation of action research projects in Salt Lake City.

Erika Camarillo, MSW

Refugee Foster Care Supervisor

Bethany Christian Services of Indianapolis

Erika Camarillo has spent the last 4 years working with unaccompanied minors and their families in the foster care system. She works for Bethany Christian Services a partnering agency with the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Erika is currently the Site Supervisor of a Transitional Foster Care Program that aims to reunify unaccompanied minors with their families. She has had experience in all aspects of Transitional Foster Care including medical coordination, clinical work, and long-term services. Erika has a master's degree in Social Work with a concentration on Interpersonal Practice.

Pamela G. Castle

Director of Long Term Care* / Director Medical Staff Services

Rady Children’s Hospital – San Diego

Rocio Chang-Angulo, Psy.D.

Assistant Professor

University of Connecticut

Rocío has published in the area of childhood and adult trauma and presented at a wide variety of regional and national scientific meetings. She is sought after to provide specific training on assessment and treatment of complex trauma, and in particular she has been a resource to Latino organizations. Dr. Chang served as Director of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)-funded Capitol Region Mental Health Center Women’s Diversion Program from 2003-2006, working with Dr. Julian Ford to adapt Trauma Affect Regulation Guidelines for Education and Therapy (TARGET) to complement the Relational-Cultural treatment and rehabilitation model she initiated. She has conducted TARGET with adolescents. She is a trainer of Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP), Think Trauma Curriculum, Restorative Justice Practices, and Peer Support Services. She has been trained in Adolescent Community Reinforcement Approach for adolescent cannabis users (ACRA), Adoption Competency, Gestalt Pastoral Care, Spiritual Direction, Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), Trauma Focused CBT, Relational-Cultural Practices and Multicultural Wellness Education.

Shannon Chaplo, Ph.D.

Improvement Advisor

UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress

Shannon D. Chaplo, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist completing her postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University Medical Center and the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress. She completed her doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Utah, and completed her internship at Duke University Medical Center and the Center for Child and Family Health. Prior to her graduate studies she completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology and Gender and Women’s Studies at University of Wisconsin – Madison, and served as project coordinator at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for a state-wide suicide prevention program. Her research examines risk and protective factors for posttraumatic stress in youth, and their links to adolescent risk behaviors and re-victimization using a developmental psychopathology framework. Additionally, she is currently engaged in a number activities related to the training and implementation of evidenced-based treatments and bringing trauma-informed practices and treatments to schools. She is trained in a variety of evidence-based clinical interventions for children, adolescents, and families presenting with posttraumatic stress and associated outcomes.

Arabinda Kumar Choudhary, MD, MRCP, FRCR, FACHE, MBA

Chair of Department of Medical Imaging

AI duPont Hospital for Children

Choudhary has served as chair of pediatric radiology at Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware, since 2013. He is internationally recognized in his subspecialty of pediatric neuroimaging and for his expertise in imaging related to pediatric abusive head trauma (AHT).

Choudhary received his medical degree from the Medical College of Calcutta in 1994. He completed residencies in pediatrics at Princess of Wales Hospital and the University of Wales and Llandough Hospital in the U.K., followed by a residency in radiology at Cambridge University. He continued his training with fellowships in pediatric radiology and pediatric neuroradiology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

Choudhary received his M.B.A. with a major in finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2017 and received Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE) certification in 2018. He is board certified in clinical informatics, radiology, neuroradiology and pediatric radiology.

He began his career in academic medicine as director of pediatric neuroradiology at Penn State Milton S. Hershey University Medical Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania, from 2006 to 2013. He also served as associate program director of radiology in 2011-2012. He developed the pediatric neuroradiology section with increased specialization and a comprehensive teaching curriculum for fellows and residents. He also worked with partnering hospitals to build relationships and provide subspecialist services. He taught medical students at Penn State and mentored numerous students, residents, fellows and junior faculty members.

Choudhary’s research has centered on diagnosis of brain and spinal trauma, as well as chronic disease and surgery involving the brain. He was the lead author on a 2018 consensus statement on abusive head trauma, the leading cause of fatal head injuries in children younger than 2 years of age. The statement, supported by 15 international pediatric and radiology organizations and published in the journal Pediatric Radiology, outlines the consensus of evidence-based medical findings on AHT to serve as a tool within the legal system. Within weeks of publication it was in the top 5% of all research ever tracked by Altmetric, and it was the third most downloaded article from Springer’s pediatric and radiology journals in 2018.

Ann Chu, PhD

Associate Director of Dissemination for CPP

UCSF CTRP

Dr. Ann Chu received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Denver and is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist in California. She previously held a faculty position at the University of Denver and served as Program Director at A Better Way, a non-profit agency serving children and families involved in the child welfare system in the San Francisco Bay Area. Dr. Chu is currently an Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Associate Director of Dissemination for Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) at the UCSF Child Trauma Research Program, and a Zero To Three Fellow. Dr. Chu helps to train community providers in CPP, standardize CPP training model components, and develop dissemination tools that can further the implementation of CPP. Her research interests include examining the impact of trauma on vulnerable populations such as young children, youth in foster care, and survivors of childhood sexual abuse. She is currently working with research partners to evaluate adaptations of CPP to pregnant women and as a prevention curriculum for home visitors and parenting groups.

Hon. Béatrice Clément

Judge, Court of Québec, Youth Chamber

Beatrice Clement is a judge since 2011. She sits exclusively in matters of adoption, youth protection and juvenile criminal justice. Before her appointment, she practiced for 20 years as a legal aid attorney in family and youth matters.

She also presides the judicial education of Youth Chamber judges in Québec in regards to settlement conferences.

Judith A. Cohen, MD

Professor of Psychiatry

Allegheny Health Network

Judith A. Cohen is a Board Certified Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist, Medical Director of the Allegheny General Hospital Center for Traumatic Stress in Children & Adolescents, and Professor of Psychiatry at Drexel University College of Medicine in Pittsburgh, PA. With Tony Mannarino and Esther Deblinger, Dr. Cohen developed and tested Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), an evidence-based treatment for traumatized children, and has received more than a dozen federal grants related to the assessment and treatment of child maltreatment and trauma. She has served on the Board of Directors of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children and received its Outstanding Professional Award. She was a past member of the Board of Directors of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and Associate Editor of its Journal of Traumatic Stress, recipient of its Sarah Haley Memorial Award for Clinical Excellence, and co-editor of its PTSD guidelines. Dr. Cohen is Co-Chair of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Child Maltreatment and Violence Committee, first author of its PTSD practice parameters, was on its Journal's Editorial Board, and recipient of its Rieger Award for Scientific Achievement. She is Co-Chair of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network's Sexual Abuse and Child Traumatic Grief Committees and consultant to Sesame Street and the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors.

David Corwin, MD

Professor and Director of Forensic Services

Academy on Violence and Abuse, University of Utah Pediatrics Dept.

Dr. Corwin is Professor and Director of Forensic Services at the University of Utah Pediatrics Department and the current President of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC). He moved to Utah in 1999 to become Medical Director of Primary Children’s Child Protection Team, now Primary Children’s Center for Safe and Healthy Families, where he worked until 2012. Since 1986, he has helped start five professional societies addressing child maltreatment and interpersonal violence including the California Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (CAPSAC), APSAC, the Ray Helfer Society, the Academy on Violence and Abuse (AVA) and the National Health Collaborative on the Violence and Abuse (NHCVA). Dr. Corwin’s videos address childhood trauma and maltreatment including the AVA’s Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study DVD (2012). He initiated and oversees the AVA/NHCVA “ACEs: Informing Best Practices” (2015) available at www.avahealth.org. As AVA’s President (2013-2015), he introduced the AVA to South Korea, Hong Kong, and China. In 2014, Dr. Corwin helped form Utah’s Trauma-Resiliency Collaborative and joined Utah’s Coalition for Protecting Childhood in 2016. He proposed and helped organize the 2017 National Summit to End Corporal Punishment in the USA, that was co-sponsored and funded by NY Foundling’s Vincent J. Fontana Center for Child Protection in collaboration with the National Alliance to End the Hitting of Children and APSAC. Dr. Corwin consults, evaluates and testifies on maltreatment and childhood trauma cases throughout the US and lectures worldwide.1

Sarah Cox, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Australian Centre for Child Protection, University of South Australia

Dr Sarah Cox is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for Child Protection at the University of South Australia. Sarah is also a registered psychologist with experience in complex trauma and child protection, and she has worked with children in care, families under investigation orders, as well as working therapeutically with young adults who have experienced child abuse and neglect. She is also an experienced researcher, working across a broad array of qualitative and quantitative research projects at the Australian Centre for Child Protection (ACCP). During her time at the ACCP, Sarah has led the evaluation of over 100 programs and services designed to prevent or reduce child abuse and neglect within South Australia. These included programs across the areas of family preservation, family support, parenting education, vulnerable infants, domestic violence (including interventions for both victims and perpetrators), homelessness, supported playgroups, school-based primary prevention strategies, nurse home visiting, and peer support. Through these experiences Sarah has developed a strong interest in prevention and early intervention for infants, children, and their families to reduce the impact of trauma and interrupt the intergenerational cycle of abuse and neglect.

Raven Cuellar, PhD

Assistant Professor and Clinical Psychologist, Program Director of ACTION Childhood Trauma Clinic

ACTION Childhood Trauma Clinic UNM

Raven Cuellar, Ph.D. is an assistant professor and licensed clinical psychologist at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Cuellar is the Program Director of the ACTION Clinic, an outpatient specialty clinic dedicated to providing trauma-focused therapy services, as well as training, outreach and consultation to local providers, service agencies and communities. She is passionate about providing evidence-based trauma treatment to underserved and marginalized communities, training and supervision in models of trauma treatment, community outreach and organizing, and methods of promoting empowerment and resilience in youth. Dr. Cuellar has facilitated numerous trainings with local service providers and other child-serving professionals in New Mexico on topics such as the assessment and treatment of trauma and PTSD, development of healthy attachment relationships, secondary traumatic stress and provider resiliency, and trauma-informed systems of care. She is an active member of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) and co-chair of the Secondary Traumatic Stress Collaborative Group. Dr. Cuellar is a certified TARGET trainer who is working to disseminate this brief model of complex trauma therapy and education to a wide range of child-serving professionals in New Mexico, while working with the model developers to culturally adapt this evidence-based practice for tribal communities.

Dyann Daley, MD

Founder and CEO

Predict-Align-Prevent

Dr. Dyann Daley is the founder and CEO of Predict-Align-Prevent, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which implements a novel continuous quality improvement cycle for the prevention of child abuse and neglect. Predict-Align-Prevent (PAP) aims to leverage existing funding, local expertise, and community-wide participation in prevention activities with accountability to objective measures of population health and safety. PAP is at work on a national scale seeking the combination(s) of programs, services, and infrastructure that reliably prevents child maltreatment and related fatalities across jurisdictions.

Dr. Daley is a physician pediatric anesthesiologist with 13 years of clinical experience, and is an Associate Professor with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Previously, Dr. Daley was the founder and executive director of the Center for Prevention of Child Maltreatment, led by Cook Childrens, in Fort Worth, TX, from 2014 - 2017.

Dr. Daley completed a fellowship in Pediatric Anesthesiology with UT Southwestern in 2006, completed her residency in Anesthesiology with Baylor College of Medicine in 2005, and received her Doctor of Medicine from Saba University School of Medicine in 2001.

Megan Davidson, PhD

Child Advocacy Center

Project Harmony

Megan Davidson, PhD is the Data and Quality Manager at Project Harmony, a large Child Advocacy Center located in Omaha, Nebraska. Megan has Bachelor’s Degrees in both Psychology and Criminal Justice, as well as a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Louisville. Megan also holds a PhD in Public Affairs with a concentration in Criminal Justice from the University of Central Florida. In her current position, Megan is responsible for the oversight and management of data collection efforts and case management systems. Other responsibilities include the development and implementation of continuous quality improvement mechanisms, evaluating program and organizational performance, and ensuring accurate reporting of organizational efforts to funders. Megan has assisted this organization with adopting a data-driven mindset, and has played an instrumental role in helping agency leaders and stakeholders use data to drive decision-making.
Prior to joining the Project Harmony team, Megan was a Senior Researcher at a non-profit research firm located in Denver, Colorado. In that role, Megan led teams of researchers by developing, implementing, and overseeing extensive program evaluation and research projects to help public sector agencies better understand their programs/organizations. Early in her career, Megan served as an Assistant Professor in the Criminal Justice Department at East Carolina University (ECU) where she conducted applied research focused on criminal justice responses to special populations of offenders (i.e. those with a mental illness, substance abuse disorder, etc.). Megan continues to teach Adjunct Courses for ECU, including a Master’s Level Program Evaluation course that she has taught for 5 years intended to prepare criminal justice professionals to implement program evaluation research within their organizations to guide data-driven decision-making. Megan has extensive experience presenting on research-related topics locally and nationally.

Allan DeJong, MD

Co- Director, Children at Risk Evaluation (CARE) Program

Nemours- A. I. duPont Hospital for Children

Allan De Jong, M.D, has been involved in the management of suspected physical and sexual abuse of children for over forty years. Dr. De Jong graduated from Colgate University in 1970, Cornell University Medical College in 1974, received pediatric residency training at the University of Michigan Medical Center, and completed fellowship training in Community Pediatrics at the University of Rochester before joining the faculty at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in 1978. Dr. De Jong had been managing child physical and sexual abuse cases at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital since joining the Jefferson faculty, and currently holds the rank of Clinical Professor of Pediatrics. Dr De Jong has been the Medical Director for the Children’s Advocacy Center of Delaware (CACD) since it opened in 1996, became Director of the Children at Risk Evaluation (CARE) Program at Nemours – A.I duPont Hospital for Children in 1997, and has practiced full time as a child abuse pediatrician since that time. He is board certified in General Pediatrics and in Child Abuse Pediatrics.
Dr. De Jong has lectured regionally and nationally on physical and sexual abuse of children, has 35 publications in the field of child abuse. He is a member of the Ray Helfer Society, the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Medical/Legal Advisory Board for Child Abuse, and the Delaware Child Protection Accountability Commission and the Advisor for the Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect Education Program Committee for the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Catherine Delapaz, BS

Associate

National Criminal Justice Training Center/FVTC

Cathy is one of the country’s foremost experts on Child Sexual Exploitation Investigations. She is a 34-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department where she has worked as a Detective in the Crimes Against Children Unit for 20 years. She has investigated thousands of child sexual abuse cases, to include high profile authority figure cases, child abduction cases, child sex trafficking cases and cold case murders. Cathy has interviewed thousands of victims and suspects. She trains both nationally and internationally on best approaches to victim interviews of high-risk and trafficking victims to ensure their victimization is recognized by the system. She also trains extensively on suspect interrogations of exploiters of children, whether it be a parent or a trafficker. She has investigated many complex, high profile cases and shares her extensive knowledge of case management as well as skill sets needed for quality victim-centered investigation resulting in justice for children.

Paul DerOhannesian, JD

Attorney

DerOhannesian & DerOhannesian

Paul DerOhannesian II is a graduate of Georgetown University (1975) and Albany Law School (1978). For 22 years, he oversaw Albany County’s Special Assault Unit responsible for the investigation and prosecution of all sexual assault, child abuse, domestic violence, and child homicide cases. He is a nationally recognized writer, lecturer and consultant on sexual assault, child homicide and trial tactics. He is author of Sexual Assault Trials, now in its fourth edition (2014 LEXIS, supplemented annually) and numerous articles in the area of trial strategy and techniques. Mr. DerOhannesian has lectured extensively and served as a consultant to numerous law enforcement and government agencies. He is a member of the New York State Children’s Justice Task Force and participated in the NYS Children’s Justice Task Force Forensic Interview Steering Committee and is a contributing author of its Forensic Interviewing Best Practices Manual (2003). He was also a member of the State University of New York Task Force on Sexual Assault (2006-2007). Mr. DerOhannesian has testified on issues involving the sexual exploitation and physical abuse of children before federal and state executive and legislative bodies as well as a grand jury recommending reforms to laws affecting the prosecution of child abuse cases. Mr. DerOhannesian is in private practice which represents sexual assault and crime victims, as well as citizens accused of civil and criminal violations of law and is a consultant in the investigation and trials of sexual assault, child abuse, domestic violence, and child homicide cases.

Mary Devereaux, PhD

Assistant Director Research Ethics Program

University of California San Diego

Mary Devereaux, Ph.D., is a philosopher and bioethicist at University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She is Assistant Director of the UCSD Research Ethics Program and the San Diego Research Ethics Consortium, and Director of the UCSD Biomedical Ethics Seminars. She also holds an appointment in the Health Law & Policy Program, where she is Academic Coordinator, and Adjunct Professor of Law at California Western School of Law.

Devereaux serves on the Hospital Ethics Committee at the Medical Center Hillcrest and provides ethics training in the School of Medicine and a variety of graduate programs in health sciences. She is founder and Director of Tough Cases, a monthly case-based ethics discussion for clinicians and medical staff, and Co-Director of the Medical Humanities Research Group on campus.

She speaks widely on issues in biomedical and research ethics for academic and lay audiences. Recent publications include work on ethical and regulatory issues in stem cell research, reproductive medicine, cosmetic surgery, and medical tourism. Devereaux is a member of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and the American Philosophical Association.

Jason Dickinson, PhD

Director, Associate Professor

Center for Child Advocacy and Policy, Montclair State University

Jason J. Dickinson, Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychology and the Director of the Robert D. McCormick Center for Child Advocacy and Policy at Montclair State University. His research on children’s eyewitness testimony (understanding how children remember, misremember, forget, and tell about events they’ve experienced) is designed to generate evidence based recommendations for questioning children and adults and facilitate investigative decision-making in forensic contexts. His work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the New Jersey Department of Children’s and Families. He regularly works with the interviewing and legal communities to help translate research into public policy and inform
investigative practices.

Mercie DiGangi, DO

Physican Leader

Kaiser Permanente

Mercie DiGangi, DO is a Pediatrician at Kaiser Permanente Downey and the Southern California Regional Chair of the SCPMG Child Abuse Prevention Program (CAPP). She oversees the implementation of a coordinated approach for improving screening, identification, and services for child abuse victims. The program includes all Kaiser Permanente medical centers from San Diego to Kern County.
She received her medical degree from Western University of Health Sciences, college of Osteopathic Medicine in Pomona, CA. She completed her residency training in Pediatrics at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.
In addition to seeing pediatric patients full time and doing the regional child abuse work, she is also conducting an ACEs screening pilot in SCPMG involving 4 medical centers. They are currently screening ACEs at 3 and 5 year old well child visits (started July 2018) with plans to expand to the Pediatrics Regional Developmental/Behavior group by mid-2019, as well as increase ages being screened to include 10 and 13 year olds Spring 2019 and a KP regional spread within the next year (screen in every pediatric clinic at ages 3, 5, 10, 13). Through this screening pilot, and working with the Center For Youth Wellness and the National Pediatric Practice Coalition, Mercie has also been mentoring other sites in separate states as they begin their ACEs screenings.

Sara Dolan, PhD

Associate Professor

Baylor University

Dr. Dolan is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Baylor University and PI of the SAMHSA-funded NCTSN grant that provides training opportunities in evidence-based assessment for Child Advocacy Center mental health workers. Dr. Dolan’s research interest includes the diagnosis and treatment of the comorbidity between PTSD and traumatic brain injury. She also researches functional outcomes for these disorders. Dr. Dolan has been recognized as one of 30 “Citizen Psychologists” by the president of the American Psychological Association, for her work in psychological intervention for trauma, specifically the work she did following the West, Texas fertilizer explosion in April 2013. Dr. Dolan was part of a collaborative effort to create a psychological intervention team in her home town, which has helped residents affected by disasters and crises. To support this team, Dr. Dolan and her collaborating colleagues provide Psychological First Aid training to the Waco community and Baylor undergraduate and graduate students. The Psychological First Aid Training is available through the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and assists children, adolescents, adults and families in the aftermath of disaster and terrorism.

Jennifer Donahue, JD

Child Abuse Investigation Coordinator

Office of Child Advocate of the State of Delaware

Jennifer Donahue, Esquire, CWLS, graduated from Loyola University, Maryland in 1996 and earned her Juris Doctor from Delaware Law School in 2000. Jennifer began her legal career in New Jersey where she practiced in all areas of Family Law, including child custody and support matters, domestic violence and civil litigation. In 2007, Jennifer began working in child welfare as a Deputy Child Advocate with Delaware’s Office of the Child Advocate. In that role, Jennifer provided legal representation to abused and neglected children in Family Court proceedings.
In 2013, Jennifer was appointed as Delaware’s first Child Abuse Investigation Coordinator who is responsible for reviewing and monitoring every case of serious physical injury, death, and sexual abuse of a child from inception to civil and criminal disposition. In 2014, Jennifer began reviewing cases involving substance exposed infants (SEI) and their families and developed an independent database to track these cases and identify trends.
Jennifer is also an appointed Commissioner on the Child Protection Accountability Commission and the Child Death Review Commission, as well as an active member of the Child Abuse and Neglect Panel with the Office of the Child Advocate.
In 2017, Jennifer was awarded the Muriel E. Gilman Family Advocacy Award for her efforts to address the impact of substance abuse on young children in Delaware.
In 2018, Jennifer testified before the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on the Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018.
Jennifer is certified by the National Association of Counsel for Children as a Child Welfare Law Specialist since 2013.

Jerry Dunn, PhD

Clinical Professor and Executive Director

Children's Advocacy Services of Greater St. Louis- University of Missouri- St. Louis

Jerry Dunn, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of Children's Advocacy Services of Greater St. Louis (CASGSL) and a Clinical Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL). She has served as CASGSL's Executive Director for fourteen years and has overseen the evolution of the forensic, clinical, training, research and academic units of an urban Child Advocacy Center (CAC) uniquely embedded within a University setting. Annually, CASGSL completes approximately 700 forensic interviews; over 8,000 sessions of trauma focused counseling; professional development training for more than 1,000 individuals as well as instruction, didactic training and supervision for over 250 students.

Dr. Dunn spearheaded the development of the Child Advocacy Studies (CAST) undergraduate certificate and minor at UMSL and continues to actively teach Assessment and Intervention in Child Abuse in the CAST program. Dr. Dunn's involvement in the CAST program led to the development of Project FORECAST (Foundations for Outreach through Experiential Child Advocacy Studies) which is a higher education workforce development project funded by SAMHSA through the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN). Dr. Dunn serves as the Principal Investigator on the project which aims to disseminate knowledge about trauma through the NCTSN's Core Concepts of Understanding Traumatic Stress Responses in Children and Families and build Trauma Informed Experiential and Reasoning Skills (TIERS) throughout the multidisciplinary workforce. Project FORECAST achieves these aims by facilitating child trauma focused Problem Based Learning Simulations that Dr. Dunn pioneered in her CAST courses at UMSL.

During the course of her career Dr. Dunn has been actively engaged in a number of child serving organizations at the local, state and national levels. Within the NCTSN, Dr. Dunn has served on the Policy Program Committee, the Implementation Advisory Council and on the Core Curriculum Leadership Consortium. In addition to her leadership roles, she also enjoys continuing to see clients and supervise cases. Dr. Dunn is trained to implement a number of evidence based practices and serves as a trainer for several models including being designated as an Advanced Facilitator for the NCTSN's Core Curriculum.

Liza Eshilian-Oates, MD

SCPMG

Liza Eshilian-Oates is the Regional Director for the Southern California Family Violence Prevention Program for Kaiser Permanente. She oversees the implementation of a coordinated approach for improving screening, identification, and services for family violence victims, including child abuse, intimate partner violence and elder abuse. The program includes all Kaiser Permanente medical centers from San Diego to Kern County.

Dr. Eshilian-Oates practices in the Women’s Health Center at Kaiser Permanente in Orange County. She received her medical degree from the University of California, Irvine and completed her residency training in Family Medicine with Kaiser Permanente in Orange County. She is a current faculty member of the Kaiser Permanente Orange County Family Medicine Residency Program and is board certified in Family Medicine.

Melissa Evans, MSW Candidate

National Children's Advocacy Center

Melissa Evans, BA – Melissa Evans earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Athens State University, with a little help from Louisiana State University. She began her service at the National Children’s Advocacy Center in 2008. Melissa started as a volunteer assisting with the Forensic Interviewing of Children training and then transitioned to the NCAC’s school-based child abuse prevention program, Stop Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN). From there, Melissa was hired as a SCAN facilitator and spent the next seven years delivering vital child abuse prevention information to area elementary schools. Melissa is currently a member of the NCAC’s Intervention team, serving as a Family Advocate. In addition to her employment with NCAC, Melissa is enrolled in the University of Alabama’s Master of Social Worker program. When not helping clients and completing assignments, Melissa is occupied with scary movies, reading and Pokémon. She is married and has 3 ridiculously spoiled fur babies. Melissa and her husband have traveled extensively which strengthens her resolve to help children as she sees the plight of children all over the world. Her goal is to make a difference in the life of one child, one family at a time.

Courtney Everson, PhD

Researcher

Colorado State University - Social Work Research Center

Courtney L. Everson, PhD, is an Applied Medical Anthropologist with a long track record of community engagement, research, evaluation, and leadership in health and human services, non-profit management, and higher education. Dr. Everson is currently appointed as a Researcher with Colorado State University (CSU) in the Social Work Research Center (SWRC), School of Social Work, College of Health and Human Sciences. Dr. Everson’s research specializations include infant, child, and youth development, well-being, and health; child welfare and maltreatment; health inequities; collaborative care models; mixed methodologies; and knowledge translation. Dr. Everson is also the Director of Research Education for the Midwives Alliance of North America Division of Research, a Research Working Group member of the Academic Collaborative for Integrative Health, and a strategic consultant to higher education entities, governmental agencies, and non-profit organizations on issues of equity, complex systems evaluation, and anti-oppression.

Andrew Factor, MD, MPH

Internist

Sutter Health

Vincent Felitti, MD

Founding Chairman, Department of Preventive Medicine, Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program

Kaiser Permanente Medical Group (Ret)

Vincent J. Felitti is co-Principal Investigator of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, ongoing collaborative research between Kaiser Permanente and the Centers for Disease Control. A 1962 graduate of the Johns Hopkins Medical School, Dr. Felitti is an Infectious Disease internist who founded the Department of Preventive Medicine for Kaiser Permanente in San Diego, California in 1975. He served as Chief of Preventive Medicine until 2001. Under Dr. Felitti’s leadership, the Health Appraisal Division of the department became the largest single-site medical evaluation facility in the world, providing comprehensive, biopsychosocial medical evaluation to a total of 1.3 million individual adults. During his career, he developed major health-risk abatement programs for obesity, smoking, the genetic disease Hemochromatosis, and for somatization disorders. These programs are provided to over 1,000 patients per month in San Diego. Dr. Felitti is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians.

Valerie Fictorie, MS

Children's and Youth Trauma Center Haarlem, The Netherlands

Kenter Jeugdhulp

Valerie works as a child psychologist and EMDR therapist at the Children's and Youth Trauma Center in the Netherlands. Furthermore, she is a traumaspecialist and forensic interviewer at the Multidisciplinary Center for Child Abuse and Neglect. In the past she worked at a clinic for children with trauma and cognitive disabilities. Next to her clinical work she is a teacher for the National Institute for Education about Child Abuse and guest lecturer at postdoc courses for judges ad prosecutors.

David Finkelhor, PhD

Director

Crimes against Children Research Center, University of New Hampshire

David Finkelhor is Director of Crimes against Children Research Center, Professor of Sociology, and University Professor at the University of New Hampshire. His core areas of interest have been in child maltreatment and family violence, dating back in 1977. He is perhaps best known for his conceptual and empirical work on the problem of child sexual abuse, including prevalence surveys, his Four Pre-conditions Model of Sexual Abuse, and his Four Traumagenic Dynamics Model of sexual abuse trauma. He also helped develop the concept of “poly-victimization.” In addition, he has done extensive research about child homicide, missing and abducted children, bullying, and Internet victimization. In his recent work, for example, his book, Child Victimization (Oxford University Press, 2008), he has tried to unify and integrate knowledge about all the diverse forms of child victimization in a field he has termed Developmental Victimology. This book received the Daniel Schneider Child Welfare Book of the Year award in 2009. He has also written extensively about trends in child maltreatment. All together he is editor and author of 12 books and over 200 journal articles and book chapters. He has received grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, and the US Department of Justice, and a variety of other sources. In 1994, he was given the Distinguished Child Abuse Professional Award by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, in 2004 he was given the Significant Achievement Award from the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, in 2005 he and his colleagues received the Child Maltreatment Article of the Year award, in 2007 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Society of Criminology, and in 2014 he was awarded the National Scientific Impact Award from the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect.

Michael Fisher, PhD, MS

Assistant Research Professor

University of Colorado School of Medicine

Dr. Fisher is an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Health Care Policy and Research at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He is a medical sociologist who specializes in the use of qualitative and mixed methods in health services research, and is skilled at health policy and program evaluation. Dr. Fisher’s primary research focuses on the social dimensions of mental health and illness, including topics of social stigma, treatment access, and the diagnostic process. Prior to joining the University of Colorado, he held a faculty position at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and a health policy research position at the RAND Corporation. He earned his PhD in Sociology from the University of California at San Francisco, M.S. in Health Systems Administration from Georgetown University, and B.S. in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Studies from the University of Southern California.

Justin Fitzsimmons, MD

Program Manager

SEARCH, High-Tech Crime Training Services, The National Consortium for Justice Information and Stat

Justin Fitzsimmons is the Program Manager of the High-Tech Training Services division of SEARCH Group, Inc. He is a nationally-recognized legal authority on technology-facilitated crimes against children. He trains at national, state and local conferences on the subject of sexual and severe physical abuse crimes against children. He is licensed to practice law in Illinois and has significant experience as a prosecuting attorney. Prior to joining SEARCH Group, he was a Senior Attorney with the National District Attorneys Association’s National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse. At NDAA he managed the technology-facilitated child exploitation unit. Before joining NDAA he was the supervisor of the Special Prosecutions Unit of the Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office. Prior to SPU, he was assigned to the Child Advocacy Center where he prosecuted sexual assault and severe physical abuse of children. In 2017, he was appointed as a Special Prosecutor by DeKalb County, Illinois. He has published articles on child sexual exploitation and other emerging technological issues. He participates on advisory committees and task forces, and supports agencies, courts, and jurisdictions as they create and implement effective procedures, practices, and technology applications that seek to investigate and combat high-tech crime and recover digital evidence. Mr. Fitzsimmons has served as a member of national working groups with other individuals from Federal, state, and local law enforcement, nonprofit organizations, and Internet safety organizations to develop responses and education to technology-facilitated crimes. In addition, from 2006–2008, he drafted legislation that addressed technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation issues, which was subsequently signed into law in Illinois. He is on the Executive Committee of the National Children’s Alliance Board of Directors and is also on the Board of Directors for Children’s Advocacy Centers of Illinois and the Friends of Kane County Child Advocacy Center.

Michael Flaningam, MD

Internist

Sutter Health

Heather Forkey, MD

Associate Professor; Director, Child Protection Program and Foster Children Evaulation Service

UMass Memorial Medical School, UMass Memorial Children's Medical Center

Heather C. Forkey, MD, is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics The Joy McCann Professor for Women in Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. In her institutional roles as Division Director for the Child Protection Program and as Director of the Foster Children Evaluation Service (FaCES) of the UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center, Dr. Forkey leads programs to address the needs of children who are victims of abuse, neglect and emotional trauma. She received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University and medical degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. She completed her pediatric residency and chief residency at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

In addition to her clinical work, Dr. Forkey has been the recipient of local and federal grants to address issues of children in foster care and to translate promising practices to address physical and mental health needs of children who have been traumatized. She is a nationally recognized leader in the field of child trauma and foster care medicine, has published and presents nationally on the topic, and her work has been highlighted in the popular press as well, including Forbes, The Boston Globe and The Atlantic.

Dr. Forkey serves on the Steering Committee and multiple other roles for the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, and provides leadership for the American Academy of Pediatrics on issues related to foster care and child trauma. Locally, she works with regional and state programs to address the needs of children who have been abused and neglected and to improve the services and supports for our most vulnerable children.

Lindsay Forte, M.S.

Training Coordinator

UC Davis CAARE Center

Lindsay Forte, MS earned her MS in Child Development from University of California, Davis where she studied the outcomes and risk factors of children in the child welfare system who participate in Parent-Child Interaction Therapy with both foster and biological caregivers. She is currently the PCIT & PC-CARE Training Coordinator at the CAARE Center in the Pediatric Department of the UC Davis Children’s Hospital and is a co-developer of Parent-Child Care (PC-CARE). She helps to manage a SAMHSA-funded NCTSN project to provide PC-CARE as a brief preventive intervention to newly placed foster children to help stabilize placements. As part of this project she maintains partnerships with Sacramento County DCFAS and other stakeholders, and manages the referral system and intake coordination. She also develops and implements training models for mental health providers and agencies across the country. Her research interests include program development and evidence based treatment dissemination and training, effective programs to reduce risk for young children in the child welfare system, and mental health treatment for traumatized children in community mental health center settings.

Kristine Fortin, MD

Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics

Perelman School of Medicine University of Pennsylvania

Kristine Fortin, MD, MPH, is an attending physician and Medical Director of the Fostering Health Program at Safe Place: Center for Child Protection and Health at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Alexandria Fuller, B.A.

NCTSN Youth Task Force Member

Center for Superheroes; Texas Tech University Health Science Center

Alexandria Fuller is a recent graduate of Texas Tech University and is currently in process of applying to Law School. She is a member of the NCTSN Youth Task Force and works at the TTUHSC Center for Superheroes in the Policy wing of the Center. She has done work at multiple levels for foster youth and is committed to bringing a voice to those who are unable to bring their own voice to the conversation of child abuse and neglect.

Ateret Gewirtz-Meydan, MD

Postdoctoral fellow

Crimes against Children Research Center (CCRC)

Dr. Ateret Gewirtz-Meydan is a social worker (MSW) and a certified sex therapist (by the ISST). Her work aims to expand the understanding of sexual health and wellbeing. Her research focuses on conceptualizing sexual health, predicting sexual health by social and psychological factors, and examine how sexual health is shaped by contemporary social media. Her work is important to the social work profession as it broadens the understanding of sexual health among populations that are excluded from the discourse on sexuality and suffer from sexual trauma or abuse, sexual self-harm behaviors, disrupted sexual self-concept and sexual stigma.
In the past decade, Dr. Gewirtz-Meydan was involved in research as well as in practice. In practice, she is a clinician treating individuals and couples at the Sex and Couple Therapy Unit at Meir Medical Hospital. In research, she investigates the conceptualization of sexual health and the social and psychological factors predicting sexual health. She has published over 20 papers in peer-reviewed journals examining these issues from various perspectives and research methods and has applied and received funding from competitive research grants.
Ateret completed her postdoctoral fellowship (2017-2018), supported by the Haruv Institute, at the Crimes against Children Research Center (CCRC) at the University of New Hampshire, hosted by Prof. David Finkelhor. During this time, she has been investigating issues related to child sexual abuse and assault, risky sexual behaviors among children and child pornography. Based on her research during her postdoc, she is currently focusing on examining the role of social media in predicting and shaping sexual health among young adults and adolescents. She received funding from the Sexual Wellness Center in US to pursue this area of research.
Overall, Dr. Gewirtz-Meydan’s work aims to promote the equality and access to sexual health and wellbeing and reduce sexual exploitation and oppression and physical, emotional or psychological sexual harm. Rather than offering sex therapy based on traditional approaches, Ateret hopes to develop evidence-based-practice interventions to treat maladaptive sexual behaviors among youth and sexual health concerns of CSA victims.

Sherelle Gilbert, MSW

Training Coordinator and Therapist

National Children's Advocacy Center

Sherelle Gilbert, MSW – Sherelle is a Training Coordinator for the National Children’s Advocacy Center (NCAC) in Huntsville, Alabama. She is responsible for operations associated with a variety of professional training projects through the NCAC’s Training Center. Sherelle facilitates the Caregivers Support group in the Clinical department of NCAC and serves as a presenter for the Victim Advocacy Training. Sherelle began her tenure at NCAC in July 2013. Her background includes three years in mental health and three years in foster care and child welfare. She has facilitated several Domestic Violence Awareness seminars in Detroit, MI and currently participates in outreach projects for women in need in the community including victims and survivors of domestic violence, single mothers and young girls through an organization she co-founded called The Ladies Lounge. She holds a Bachelor’s in Social Work from Oakwood University and a Master’s in Social Work from Rutgers University.

R.J. Gillespie, MD, MHPE

Pediatrician

Children's Clinic, Portland, Oregon

R.J. Gillespie, M.D., M.H.P.E, is a general pediatrician with The Children’s Clinic in Portland, and is the Medical Director of the Oregon Pediatric Improvement Partnership. From 2007 through 2010 he worked as the Medical Director of Quality Improvement for the Children’s Health Alliance, where he designed and implemented QI projects for a network of 110 pediatricians in the Portland metro area. Through this position, he gained experience in developing actionable practice-based quality measures, curriculum design for quality improvement initiatives, and analysis of multiple practice workflows. He has also taught Quality and Efficiency at Portland State University for the Healthcare Management Certificate Program. He served as the lead physician advisor and trainer for the Screening Tools and Referral Training (START) project through the Oregon Pediatric Society, which is a statewide training program designed to improve developmental screening in primary care offices. He additionally designed the curriculum and training program for START’s first expansion module, Screening for Peripartum Mood Disorders. His work in maternal depression earned him a place on the state’s HB 2666 Maternal Mental Health Workgroup, and subsequent recognition with the Postpartum Support International’s Healthcare Leadership Award.
He is actively involved as a member and advisor to a number of local quality improvement initiatives and state policy committees, including the Measurement & Reporting Committee for Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation, Community Health and Quality Committee for the Oregon Medical Association, the Patient Centered Primary Care Home Standards Advisory Committee for the Office of Health Policy & Research, and the Oregon Health Authority’s Metrics & Scoring Committee, which decides quality and incentive metrics for the Coordinated Care Organizations in Oregon. He attended medical school at Oregon Health Sciences University, graduating in 1997, and completed his residency and chief residency at Rush Children’s Hospital in Chicago, Illinois in 2001. He also earned a Master of Health Professions Education from University of Illinois – Chicago in 2007.

Michael Gomez, PhD

Assistant Professor

Center for Superheroes; Texas Tech University Health Science Center

Dr. Michael Gomez is currently Assistant Professor at the Center for Superheroes at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) Department of Pediatrics and Adjunct Professor at Texas Tech University Psychological Sciences, where he is committed to dissemination of evidence based practices in psychology. He was previously faculty at the Center on Child Abuse and Neglect/Child Study Center Department of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at the OU Health and Sciences Center in Oklahoma City. He specializes in Trauma-Focused CBT, treatment of adolescents with problematic sexual behaviors (PSB), parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT), and assessment of autism spectrum disorders. He is a Nationally Certified TF-CBT Trainer, of which he is one of 70 in the world. Additionally, he is a Nationally Certified CE-CERT Trainer, a model for addressing vicarious trauma in providers. He is trained in assessment and diagnostics of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). He is one of the three national co-chairs for the National Child Traumatic Stress Networks (NCTSN) Trauma and Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) Workgroup, as well as a member of the NCTSN Steering Committee and NCTSN Youth Task Force.

Paris Goodyear-Brown, LCSW

Clinical Director

Nurture House

Paris Goodyear-Brown is a Licensed Clinical Social
Worker, a Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor, and an EMDRIA Certified EMDR therapist with 25 years of experience in treating traumatized and attachment disturbed children and families. She is the Clinical Director and Senior Clinician of Nurture House, the Executive Director of the TraumaPlay Institute, the creator of TraumaPlay (a flexibly sequential play therapy model for treating trauma and attachment disturbances), an Adjunct Instructor of Psychiatric Mental Health at Vanderbilt University and a sought after speaker. With recent engagements in Singapore, Ireland, Nepal, Turkey, and South Africa, Paris trains therapists, teachers, and parents of vulnerable children around the globe and is best known for her dynamic and engaging presentations. She has served as the Executive Director of the Lipscomb Play Therapy and Expressive Arts Center, is a TNAPT board member, she has received the APT award for Play Therapy Promotion and Education and is the author of multiple books, chapters and articles related to child therapy including Trauma and Play Therapy, The Handbook of Child Sexual Abuse, and A Safe Circle for Little U.

Katie Greathouse, LCSW

Regional Child Forensic Interviewer/Trainer

Mt. Emily Safe Center

Katie is the lead forensic interviewer, Clinical Supervisor, and Regional Interviewer for Mt. Emily Safe Center in La Grande, Oregon. Katie has been working with children and families since 2001. She received her Master’s in Social Work from Walla Walla University in 2005 and became a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in 2009. Katie has been conducting child forensic interviews, providing regional services, and offering counseling services at Mt. Emily Safe Center since 2010. She is currently on the state training team for the nationally accredited Oregon Child Forensic Interviewer Training. She was a part of the Regional Service work group that developed the Oregon Child Forensic Interviewer Training initiated in 2012 and nationally accredited by the National Children’s Alliance (NCA). Katie is also a state trainer for Project Ability: Interviewing Children with Disabilities. In addition, Katie is a member of the Regional Service work group that produced the 2012 edition of the Oregon Interviewing Guidelines as well as the 2018 edition. In June 2018, Katie presented at the 25th Annual APSAC Colloquium in New Orleans, LA. Katie’s experience also includes working with DHS/Child Welfare to provide Family Sex Abuse Treatment, Parent Training, Individual Therapy, and Home-Based Services.

Christopher S. Greeley, MD, MS, FAAP

Professor

Texas Children's Hospital

Christopher Greeley is Chief of the Section of Public Health and Primary Care at Texas Children’s Hospital; the first such section in the country. He is Professor and Vice-Chair for Community Health in the Department of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine. He received his medical degree from the University of Virginia in 1992 and complete internship and residency in pediatrics at Vanderbilt University. He received a Masters in Clinical Research from the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, with a special concentration on Comparative Effectiveness Research. He is board certified in General Pediatrics as well as Child Abuse Pediatrics, and is a member of the AMA and the AAP. He also served on the Board of Directors of Prevention Child Abuse America from 2005-2014 and was Chair for 2009-2013. He is the current president of the Ray E. Helfer Society; the international society for physicians working in the field of child maltreatment and was appointed chair of the Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Task Force for Texas. He was elected to the American Pediatric Society in 2017.

Kelsey Gregory

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Ida Haahr-Pedersen, MSc

Doctoral Researcher

Trinity College Dublin & The Danish Children Centres

Ida Haahr-Pedersen is a doctoral researcher in the international CONTEXT-programme: The COllaborative Network for Training and EXcellence in psychoTraumatology. The CONTEXT-programme is a three-year doctoral training programme and has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 722523.

Ida Haahr-Pedersen is based at The Centre for Global Health, Trinity College Dublin and at the Danish partner organization of the research project: The Danish Children Centre Copenhagen (a Danish counterpart to the US Child Advocacy Centres). Ida Haahr-Pedersen graduated with an MSc in Sociology from the University of Copenhagen, completing additional training in the Department of Social Sciences at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Before joining the CONTEXT programme, Ida was employed as a research assistant in a psychological clinic for children with sexual behaviour problems. Idas research interests are child abuse and victimization, cross-sectoral collaboration in child abuse cases, and design of research methods in child and adolescent research.

Gertrud Hafstad, PhD

Senior researcher

Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies

Jane Halladay Goldman, PhD

Services System Program Director

UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress

Jane Halladay Goldman is the Director of the Service Systems program at the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress (NCCTS), the coordinating site of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN). In this role she is responsible for supporting diverse national, cross-disciplinary, and collaborative efforts to make child- and family- service systems more trauma-informed. She works with researchers, frontline practitioners, family members and young adults, child trauma experts, and partners from juvenile justice, child welfare, education, healthcare, and mental health systems to identify gaps, establish priorities, and implement Network initiatives that will promote the identification, referral and appropriate support for culturally diverse children, adolescents, and families who have experienced trauma. She presents to national audiences on child trauma, creating trauma-informed service systems and programs, trauma-informed child welfare and juvenile justice systems, trauma-informed organizational assessment, cross-system collaboration, and child trafficking. Her publications address cross-system collaborations for justice involve-youth and trauma-informed organizational assessment.
Dr. Halladay Goldman provides consultation for the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges’ (NCJFCJ) and Office for Victims of Crime’s (OVC) Vision 21: Linking Systems of Care for Children and Youth on implementing statewide screening for trauma and victimization. She is on the National Advisory Committee of Chadwick/Rady Children’s Hospital’s Trauma-Informed Practices (TIPs) Center, and the Cross-Systems Advisory Board for Northwestern University’s Center for Child Trauma Assessment, Services and Interventions. She is currently the Project Co-Director of the NCTSN’s Trauma-Informed Schools Breakthrough Series Collaborative. Prior to coming to the NCCTS, she worked in the field of child sexual abuse and rape treatment where she was engaged in research, program development, law enforcement and child welfare training, community outreach, crisis intervention and on-going therapy. She has also taught in the Department of Social Welfare at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Suzanne Haney, MD

Associate Professor

University of Nebraska Medical Center

Dr. Suzanne Haney is a board-certified Child Abuse Pediatrician at Children’s Hospital & Medical Center and University Of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) in Omaha, Nebraska. She earned her medical degree from the University of Southern California and completed a residency in Pediatrics at Naval Medical Center, Portsmouth in Virginia. Dr. Haney spent 9 years as a physician in the Navy and has worked as a staff pediatrician at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth in Virginia and Department Head of Pediatrics at U.S. Naval Hospital in Yokosuka, Japan.

Dr. Haney completed her fellowship in Child Abuse Pediatrics at Eastern Virginia Medical School and Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters and is currently the only board-certified child abuse pediatrician in the state of Nebraska.

Dr. Haney is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), and is the assistant Vice-Chair of faculty affairs for the Department of Pediatrics. She is the medical director of the Children’s Advocacy Team at Children’s Hospital & Medical Center also serves as medical director of Project Harmony, the Child Advocacy Center in Omaha. Dr. Haney’s other responsibilities include Chair of the Board of Directors for Children’s Specialty Physicians (the subspecialty physician practice) and Vice-Chair of the Pediatric Institutional Review Board at UNMC. On a state level, Dr. Haney sits on the Nebraska Child and Maternal Death Review Team. Nationally, Dr. Haney is the chair for the Council of Child Abuse & Neglect of the American Academy of Pediatrics and sits on the subboard for Child Abuse Pediatrics for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Karen Hangartner, LCSW

Project Director

National Advocacy Center, Southern Region

Karen Hangartner is Project Director for the Southern Regional Children’s Advocacy Center, a project of the National Children’s Advocacy Center (NCAC). The NCAC was the first Child Advocacy Center in the world, and continues to provide prevention and intervention services for child abuse victims in Huntsville/Madison County, AL. Ms. Hangartner holds a Masters in Social Work from The University of Alabama. She has been with the National Children’s Advocacy Center since 2003, spending four years in the Prevention department before beginning work with the Southern Regional Children’s Advocacy Center. As Project Director for SRCAC, Karen is responsible for developing and delivering training for Children’s Advocacy Centers and Multidisciplinary teams across 16 states and the District of Columbia. She has conducted more than 200 trainings for MDTs and CACs in the Southern region. She also presents at state, national and international conferences on a variety of topics including Secondary Traumatic Stress, Trauma Informed Multidisciplinary Teams, Team Functioning, and Leading in a Multidisciplinary Environment.

Rochelle Hanson, PhD

Professor, Licensed Clinical Psychologist Director, Child & Family Program,

National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science

Rochelle F. Hanson, Ph.D. is a Professor at the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center (NCVC), in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Department of Pediatrics at the Medical University of South Carolina. She also serves as Associate Director for Research at the NCVC. Her area of research focuses on the dissemination and implementation of trauma-focused, evidence-based interventions. She is particularly interested in examining the process, effectiveness, and sustainability of implementation strategies that integrate multi-stakeholder participation as a vehicle for taking trauma-focused evidence based interventions to scale. She is also interested in examining feasible, pragmatic and efficient ways to assess provider fidelity to evidence-based interventions, particularly as these relate to sustainability of implementation efforts in community practice settings. She has served as PI/Co-I on several related research and services grants funded by NIMH, Office for Victims of Crime (OVC),the Substance Abuse Mental Health and Services Administration, and the Duke Endowment. She recently completed an NIMH-funded grant to test the effectiveness of learning collaboratives as a way to build and strengthen interprofessional relationships to sustain evidence-based mental health treatment services. Dr. Hanson currently
serves as Co-Director for the Training and Technical Division of the National Mass Violence Victimization Resource Center, funded by OVC and Department of Justice. She also is the Project Director for a program funded by the SC Department of Public Safety that provides behavioral health services to crime victims seen in the pediatric primary care clinics at MUSC. Dr. Hanson is a master trainer in TF-CBT, conducting training both within and outside of the U.S. Throughout her career, she has been extensively involved in supervision and mentoring activities for psychology interns and postdoctoral fellows.

Dorothy Haskell, MSW, LCSW

Project Director -FORECAST

Children's Advocacy Services of Greater St. Louis- University of Missouri-St. Louis

Dorothy Haskell, MSW, LCSW, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who serves as the project director both for the university’s Child Advocacy Studies (CAST) program and FORECAST (Foundations for Outreach through Experiential Child Advocacy Studies), a federally funded SAMHSA grant program. FORECAST focuses on disseminating Problem Based Learning-Simulation curricula throughout the country to help create a more trauma-informed workforce. She regularly teaches Traumatic Stress in Childhood and Adolescence and facilitates the CAST internship seminar. She also maintains a small caseload, serving individual clients with trauma histories.

Mrs. Haskell received her Master's degree in Social Work from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. She is certified in a number of different evidence-based treatment models for children and youth with trauma histories, including Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy (TF-CBT), Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), Integrated Treatment for Complex Trauma (ITCT) and Alternatives for Families: a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (AF-CBT). She is an active member of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, both in her role as project director and serving on the secondary traumatic stress workgroup.

Brandi Hawk, PhD

Psychologist

UC Davis Children's Hospital

Dr. Brandi Hawk earned her Ph.D. in Clinical and Developmental Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh, where she studied the impact of institution-wide caregiver interventions on the development of young children reared in institutions in the Russian Federation. She is currently a licensed psychologist at the Child and Adolescent Abuse Resource, Evaluation, Diagnostic, and Treatment Center (CAARE Center) within the Department of Pediatrics, University of California Davis Children’s Hospital. She is a co-developer of PC-CARE, the principal investigator of a randomized control trial of PC-CARE in pediatric integrated care, and the clinical manager and co-investigator for programs implementing PC-CARE with foster children and with families experiencing homelessness. Current research interests include assessing the effectiveness of dyadic interventions in the treatment of trauma and disruptive behavior disorders.

Alison Hendricks, LCSW

Sole Proprietor

Hendricks Consulting

Alison Hendricks, LCSW, is a trainer and consultant who specializes in Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), trauma-informed systems, and Secondary Traumatic Stress. She is a National Trainer for TF-CBT and the Child Welfare Trauma Training Toolkit, a product of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) that she helped to revise in 2012. Alison is an Affiliate Member of the NCTSN. She worked with the Chadwick Center of Rady Children’s Hospital for nine years, first as a trauma therapist and then as Operations Manager of the Chadwick Trauma-Informed Systems Project. She provides training and consultation on TF-CBT, trauma-informed care, and Secondary Traumatic Stress to programs across the country. Alison is the lead author on two workbooks on TF-CBT. She also specializes in Culturally Modified TF-CBT with a focus on Latino children and families. She has presented at numerous conferences and has published several journal articles on a wide variety of topics related to childhood trauma. Alison graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BA in Psychology from Columbia University and completed her MSW at Hunter College School of Social Work. She lives in San Diego with her husband and daughter.

James Herbert, PhD

Senior Research Fellow

University of South Australia

Dr James Herbert is a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for Child Protection at the University of South Australia. Since joining the Australian Centre for Child Protection in 2014, Dr Herbert has contributed to the sustainability of the centre through attracting external funding in the order of $800,000, including from the Queensland and NSW Governments and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to CSA. While also completing this work, Dr Herbert completed an industry-funded three-year Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship, which has to date resulted in 6 peer-reviewed papers in high quality journals (Child Abuse & Neglect; Trauma, Violence, & Abuse) and 5 reports – adding to his career total of 11 refereed journal articles, 12 significant research reports for government and 7 refereed conference papers. His evaluation report on a new response to CSA in Western Australia has resulted in the adoption of this approach as the preferred model of practice for the WA Police. For these successes he was awarded Early Career Researcher of the Year (2016) by the Division of Arts, Education, and Social Sciences in UniSA. Dr Herbert’s work with the University of new Hampshire’s Crimes against Children Research Centre was awarded a commendation for international collaboration in the Division of Arts, Education, and Social Sciences in UniSA for 2017.

Jennifer Hossler, MSW

Project Manager - Project Intersect

Georgia Center for Child Advocacy

Jennifer Hossler, MSW, is the Project Manager for Project Intersect, a SAMHSA-funded program of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) that is focused on improving the well-being of Commercially Sexually Exploited Children (CSEC). This project is housed within the Georgia Center for Child Advocacy in Atlanta, GA. Jennifer has over 20 years of social work experience, with extensive expertise in child welfare practice, training and system change across the country. Jennifer has worked with traumatized children and their families in child advocacy centers, residential treatment centers and hospitals. Jennifer has been an active member of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network since 2013 and has provided multiple trainings across the country on trauma-informed practices and secondary traumatic stress for child welfare workers, supervisors, and caregivers. Most recently, Jennifer has been involved in trauma-informed training of over 1,200 staff within the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice as well as current efforts to provide trauma-informed parenting training to foster parents in both the child welfare system and through private organizations in Georgia. Jennifer also sits on the Georgia Statewide Human Trafficking Task Force and provides consultation and support for multiple committees of the NCTSN. Jennifer received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Social Work from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa and her Master’s Degree in Social Work from San Diego State University.

Leighton Huey, MD

Associate Dean for Behavioral Health Integration and Community Transformation

Geisinger Commonwealth Medical School

Dr. Huey is the Associate Dean for Behavioral Health Integration and Community Care Transformation at the Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine where he is Professor of Psychiatry.

He is also Director of Behavioral Health for Geisinger Health Systems for Northeast Pennsylvania, and serves as Co-Director of Primary Care Integration for a regional Teaching Health System, the Wright Center.
Prior to coming to Pennsylvania this past March, Dr. Huey was the Birnbaum/Blum Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Connecticut where he had also been Chair of the Department of Psychiatry followed by Associate Dean. He had previously been at Dartmouth Medical School as Vice-Chair and Medical Director in Psychiatry, and before that, was Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, where he had also been Chief of Psychiatry at the San Diego VA Medical Center. He did his residency at UCSD. He has a background in psychopharmacology and has been active in health system planning and innovation.

George Hunnicutt

Michelle Ialeggio, JD

Deputy District Attorney

San Diego District Attorney

Michelle Ialeggio has been a deputy district attorney since 2005, and is the ethics advisor for the
San Diego County District Attorney’s Office. From 2010–2018, she worked in the Family Protection
Division, where she was a team leader and tried child homicide, child torture, and multiple victim lifetop
child molest cases. She has taught in the area of child abuse for California District Attorney Association, as well as previously at the International
Conference on Family Maltreatment and for law enforcement, social workers, and other prosecutors
around the country. She has tried over 50 cases to verdict. In 2015, Ms. Ialeggio was honored by her office with the outstanding achievement
award for the successful prosecution of a child homicide, and in 2018, she received the San Diego
County Bar Association Service by a Public Attorney award.

Victoria Isaacson, MA

Child Life Specialist

Yale New Haven Children's Hospital

Victoria Isaacson, MA, CCLS, NCC is one of two Certified Child Life Specialists at the Yale Child Abuse Clinic at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital (YNHCH), a partner of the South Central Child Advocacy Center of Connecticut, and has held this position since 2010. She is the chair of the Child Life Program’s Shared Governance at YNHCH and is a co-assistant coordinator of the Child Life Internship Program. Additionally, Victoria serves the Association of Child Life Professionals organization as a member of the Community Based/Non-Traditional Role Committee and as an internship accreditation content reviewer for the Internship Accreditation Oversight Committee.

Tasneem Ismailji, MD, MPH

Co-Founder, Board member

Academy on Violence and Abuse

Tasneem Ismailji M.D, MPH is an educator/ researcher in the field of the health effects of violence and abuse. As a pediatrician (nonclinical) she has conducted numerous trainings, seminars and workshops for healthcare professionals at national conferences, medical centers, hospitals and clinics for over fifteen years. She initiated and published research on survivors of intimate partner violence as a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University. Her other major interest is relationship abuse prevention for young adults and adolescents and has led numerous workshops in schools, colleges and universities.
Dr Ismailji is a cofounder of the Academy on Violence and Abuse, its immediate past President and current Board Chair. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN). She serves on the medical sub-committee of the Domestic Violence Council of Santa Clara County in California.

Damian Jackson

Family Protection and Child Exploitation Detective

Escondido Police Department

Det. Jackson has been a sworn law enforcement officer for more than (20) years, working a variety of assignments from Patrol, SWAT, K9 and Criminal Investigation of major crimes. Since early 2010, he has been assigned to the San Diego Child Exploitation and ICAC Task Forces. He is federally cross-sworn as a Special Deputy US Marshal and is certified by the United States Secret Service as a Computer Forensic Examiner and Mobile Device Examiner as a member of the US Secret Service’s San Diego Field Office. He has been formally trained with the FBI’s Cellular Analysis Survey Team (CAST) and Child Abduction Response Team (CART), utilizing highly specialized, investigative assets to locate and track sexual predators and recover missing children. During his career, he has led hundreds of complex investigations into the sexual exploitation of children, the proliferation of child pornography via the internet and child abduction. His department’s Child Exploitation Unit, ranks among the top in the nation in the investigation and prosecution of online offenders using the internet to lure and exploit children for sex. He is frequently sought out to provide training and education to various educational, non-profit and civic organizations on the topics of child safety and child exploitation prevention, appears as a guest contributor to a national radio program for parents and is certified by the San Diego Superior and Southern District Court as an expert in the sexual exploitation of children. He resides in San Diego with his wife and their three children and is a US Marine Corps veteran.

Martina Jelley, MD, MSPH

Vice-Chair for Research

University of Oklahoma at Tulsa Internal Medicine Department

Dr. Jelley is a Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and the Julian Rothbaum Chair in Community Health Research at the University of Oklahoma School of Community Medicine in Tulsa where she also serves as the Assistant Dean for Clinical Research. Dr. Jelley’s interests include intimate partner violence (IPV) and adverse childhood experiences, focusing on the adult health effects of these problems. Her work in the field of trauma began early in her career as she was seeing many patients who were suffering due to current or past abuse and wanted to learn how to help these patients and teach medical students and residents about the issues. Dr. Jelley is working with a multidisciplinary team at OU, using simulation to help trainees in several health programs improve their skills in counseling adult patients with childhood trauma histories. In 2008, Dr. Jelley was awarded a Governor’s Commendation for Victim Services. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Academy on Violence and Abuse and a member of the Oklahoma Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board, serving as chair from 2011-2013.

Tine K. Jensen, PhD

Professor

Dep. of Psychology, University of Oslo / Norwegian Centre on Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies

Dr. Tine K. Jensen is a professor and a clinical psychologist at the University of Oslo, Department of Psychology and a senior researcher at the Norwegian Center on Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies in Oslo. Her therapeutic and research interests have been on
understanding consequences of traumatic experiences and the impact they have on youth and their families, and on change processes in psychotherapy. She was the primary investigator of an RCT comparing Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural therapy with treatment as usual for traumatized youth in regular mental health clinics in Norway. She has been the primary investigator of a longitudinal study on children traumatized by the 2004, South East Asian tsunami, and of a study on mental health problems of young unaccompanied asylum seekers. She is also a senior researcher on a study of health effects
on youth and parents who experienced the 2011 Terror Attack at Utøya Island in Norway.
She was a member of the ISTSS guidelines committee for early intervention and treatment of PTSD. After the terror attack in Norway, she was part of the Norwegian Health Directorates expert group for psychosocial interventions.

Cory Jewell Jensen, MS

Senior Trainer

CBI Consulting, Inc.

Currently the senior trainer for CBI Consulting, Cory Jewell Jensen, M.S., spent the last 35 years providing evaluation and treatment services to adult sex offenders and their families in Portland, Oregon. In addition to her clinical work, Ms. Jensen has provided training and consultation services to The National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse, The National Child Advocacy Center, The National Children’s Alliance, The United States Navy, The Office of Special Investigations-Diplomatic Security Services, The Office of Special Investigations-Diplomatic Security Services, The National Crime Victims Association, The National Boy Scouts Foundation, The Mark Mc Gwire Foundation for Children, US Marshall’s Office, NYPD Special Victims Unit and a number of other law enforcement, child advocacy and faith based organizations. Ms. Jensen served as Executive Director for the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, chaired two of ATSA’s International Research and Treatment Conferences and served as President of Oregon’s Chapter of ATSA. She also chaired the Offender Management Committee attached to the Oregon Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Task Force, was an instructor for Portland State University’s Child Welfare Training Institute for nearly 20 years and has provided training for countless Multi-disciplinary Teams throughout the United States and Europe. Jensen has been the recipient of Oregon’s "Commercial Crime Prevention Award," the "Champions for Children Award," the OATSA "Significant Achievement Award," the Nunnenkamp "Award of Excellence," and the Jan Hindman Memorial Award. She has published a number of articles related to sex offender treatment, risk management and child abuse prevention, testified as an expert witness in local and federal courts and been a featured guest on radio talk shows and the Oprah Winfrey Show.

Malin Joleby, MSc, PhD Student

University

University of Gothenburg

Malin Joleby is a PhD student within legal psychology and developmental psychology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. She is part of the well established and internationally successful research groups Criminal legal and investigative psychology – CLIP (https://psy.gu.se/english/research/forensic-psychology/?languageId=100001&disableRedirect=true&returnUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpsy.gu.se%2Fforskning%2Frattspsykologi%2F) and the Gothenburg Research unit on Youth development – GreY (https://psy.gu.se/english/research/grey/?languageId=100001&disableRedirect=true&returnUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpsy.gu.se%2Fforskning%2Futvecklingspsykologi%2F).

Joleby has a master’s degree in psychology. Before starting her PhD studies, Joleby worked as a correctional officer at a sexual institution within the Swedish prison and probation services, as well as a research assistant within different projects at the University of Gothenburg. Her research interest is mainly oriented towards different aspects of sexual abuse – but with a special focus on the victims of online child sexual abuse.

Lisa Jones, PhD

Research Associate Professor, Psychology

Crimes Against Children Research Center, University of New Hampshire

Lisa M. Jones is a Research Associate Professor of Psychology at the Crimes against Children Research Center (CCRC), University of New Hampshire. Dr. Jones received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology in 1999 from the University of Rhode Island. She has 20 years of experience conducting research on child victimization and evaluating national, state, and community-level prevention and intervention responses to youth victims. Her research focuses on a range of victimization exposures including bias and hate crime victimization, firearm violence exposure, child sexual abuse and sex trafficking victimization, and online victimization. Dr. Jones recently completed a study developing the Youth Bias Victimization Questionnaire (YBVQ), a multi-site study with pilot data collected from over 800 youth. In 2019, she was awarded a 3-year grant to conduct a national survey of U.S. law enforcement agencies on hate crime investigations and offender profiles. Dr. Jones has conducted previous research on bullying and technology-based harassment victimization and is currently leading a cluster randomized control trial evaluation of an Internet safety education program. She has published over 75 papers on child victimization and regularly presents across the country and internationally on these topics.

James Kaferly, MD

Coordinator, Connection for Kids Clinic; Assistant Professor

Denver Health and Hospital Authority

I am an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at University of Colorado Denver, a general academic pediatrician and a Colorado Innovative Health Research and Leadership Training Program fellow. I serve as coordinator for the Connection For Kids Clinic, a medical home for children and youth in foster care.

My initial academic focus centered on early childhood development and toxic stress. I developed a novel child poverty curriculum, “Early Childhood Development Amidst Adversity”, for Stanford University Pediatric residents. The Stanford Pediatric Residency Program adopted the successful curriculum into the Community Pediatrics and Child Advocacy Rotation. Curricular design and implementation continued as I was invited to the Academic Pediatric Association (APA) Poverty Task Force’s Education Workgroup and was selected for APA’s Educational Scholars Program (ESP), Cohort 8. The Workgroup produced the US Childhood Poverty Curriculum, a novel and an innovative education curriculum. In addition to supporting a peer-review publication regarding development of the Curriculum, I led a well-received Curriculum workshop presentation at the 2017 Pediatric Academic Society meeting.

While educational scholarship continues with ESP, my more recent work explores child maltreatment, clinical decision-making process and Child Welfare System outcomes. My overall career goal is to become an independent health researcher focused on poverty-related pediatric conditions, particularly child maltreatment, through the synthesis of scientific evidence, of innovative and collaborative advocacy and of pragmatic trials to test implementation of evidence-based practice. Preliminary data from this project will be critical to inform dialogue with CPS agencies, to design subsequent study of alternative action effectiveness, and to develop a potential primary care-based intervention comparing alternative action to CPS referral for children at risk for maltreatment.

Wouter Karst, MD

Dr.

Netherlands Forensic Institute

I am a full time forensic physician at the Dutch national crime lab (Netherlands Forensic Institute) with a sole focus on child abuse evaluations. I finished medical school at Eramus University Rotterdam in 2001 and I completed my post-doc Forensic Medicine in 2005.

I write reports as an expert witness on child abuse topics for criminal cases in the whole country (fatalities, head trauma, fractures, burns, bruises, sexual abuse), I testify in court, I perform acute child sexual abuse examinations in the whole country, I teach medical and judicial professionals and I am involved in scientific research.

Åsa Kastbom, MD, PhD

University Hospital of Linkoping, Sweden

Dr Kastbom work as a physician with children, adolescents and adults at Child and Adolescent Psychiatry department as well as the Adult Psychiatry department at the University Hospital in Linkoping in Sweden. She is a consultant at the Trauma Unit for Abused Children and at the Adult Psychiatry Emergency Department as well as at the Transsexual National Center. Her special field is sexual abused and traumatized children and adults and her research has covered, for example, sexual behavior in children.
Dr Kastbom is a founder and a member of the Child Protection Team at the University Hospital in Linkoping and an appreciated speaker in Sweden and also at International Conferences in, for example, Australia, USA, Iceland, Japan, Greenland and Poland.

Marilyn Kaufhold, MD

Pediatrician

Chadwick Center, Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego

Marilyn Kaufhold, MD is board certified in both Pediatrics and Child Abuse Pediatrics. She served as Assistant Medical Director for Forensic and Medical Services at the Chadwick Center for Children and Families at Rady Children's Hospital, San Diego, from 1990 to 2011 and interim Medical Director from 2015 - 2017. Her medical education was at St. Louis University School of Medicine. Pediatric internship and residency were at Jackson Memorial Hospital, the University of Miami. Following a fellowship in Developmental Pediatrics, she worked in the field of developmental disabilities for 19 years, some of which overlapped with early work in child abuse starting in 1978. Working in these dual areas of abuse and developmental disabilities resulted in a professional interest in developmentally disabled victims of abuse. She is a member of ISPCAN, APSAC, the AAP Section on Child Abuse, and the Helfer Society.
In 1995, she began an association with the California Clinical Forensic Medical Training Center, creating curriculum and training medical professionals in the state of California in the areas of child sexual abuse and adult sexual assault. The opportunity to do training as a child abuse physician took her to Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, the Philippines, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Poland, Belize, Colombia, Chile, Zambia and Canada, in addition to training provided in the United States.
In 2000, she joined the Bioethics Committee at Rady Children’s Hospital and is part of the Consult team. Partly retired now, Dr. Kaufhold continues the association with the Chadwick Center and Rady children’s Hospital to work on child abuse related projects and training.

Brooks Keeshin, MD

Assistant Professor

University of Utah Department of Pediatrics

Brooks Keeshin, M.D., is a clinician researcher in the Division of Child Protection and Family Health at the University of Utah and Safe and Healthy Families at Primary Children’s Hospital. He is the program director for the Pediatric Integrated Post-trauma Services (PIPS) project, a Category II National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) grant at the University of Utah. He is also a child abuse pediatrician and child psychiatrist. He completed medical school at the University of Cincinnati, residency in pediatrics, general and child psychiatry at the University of Utah and fellowship training in child abuse pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Dr. Keeshin is certified in Pediatrics and Child Abuse Pediatrics by the American Board of Pediatrics, and certified in General as well as Child and Adolescent Psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He provides inpatient and outpatient child abuse pediatrics consultation at Primary Children’s Hospital as well as outpatient psychiatric services for children and families with a history of abuse or trauma.

Brian Killacky

Consultant

National Criminal Justice Training Center - Fox Valley Technical College (NCJTC-FVTC)

Detective, Chicago Police Department Cold Case Unit and former Sergeant of the Complex Murder Unit CCSAO Investigations Bureau, Illinois (retired)
Brian Killacky began his investigative career as a Chicago Police Detective in the Special Investigation Unit formed after the 33 murders committed by the infamous serial killer John Wayne Gacy prompted the City of Chicago to form a unit with the investigative focus on sexual exploitation of children on the streets of Chicago. Brian received the Chicago Crime Commission Award of Merit for a decade of dedication and investigative excellence. He was assigned as a homicide and violent crimes detective in one of the most violent and diverse areas of the City of Chicago known as Area 6. Brian was assigned to the Cold Case Unit of CPD which was a city wide unit. Brian also served as investigator in the Cook County Prosecutors Cold Case Initiative. This unit received national recognition and federal funding serving over 157 municipalities besides the City of Chicago. In addition, Brian was a sergeant in the Complex Homicide Unit/Squad supervising investigative efforts.

Al Killen-Harvey, MSW

Lead Trainer

The Chadwick Center/ The Harvey Institute

Al Killen-Harvey is the co founder of The Harvey Institute, a training and consultation company whose mission is improving health care outcomes through integrating sexual health. For the past 25 years he has worked at the Chadwick Center where he has served in a variety of clinical and training positions. He has worked for several decades in the field of trauma treatment and is a past recipient of the San Diego County Child Abuse Coordinating Council’s “Unsung Hero” Award for his work with children who have been abused and/or neglected. He is a faculty member of the San Diego Public Child Welfare Training Academy.

Mr. Killen-Harvey is a frequent presenter, nationally and internationally, on a wide variety of topics related to children and adolescents as well as sexual identity and gender identity. He currently serves on the Advisory Board of The Children’s Advocacy Centers of California as well as The Courthouse Dog’s Foundation and is a past board member of CAPSAC (California Professional Society on the Abuse of Children). He has served as an expert witness for the United States Army and the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office. He also is on the Clinical Advisory Board for the Trevor Project, a national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth.

Kelly Kinnish, PhD

Clinical Director

Georgia Center for Child Advocacy

Kelly Kinnish, PhD, is the Director of Clinical Services at the Georgia Center for Child Advocacy and oversees the Center’s clinical service programs to sexually abused and traumatized children. She is also the Director of Project Intersect, a SAMHSA-funded program of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network that is focused on improving the well-being of Commercially Sexually Exploited Children (CSEC). The Project’s principal focus is the identification and delivery of trauma-focused evidenced based mental health treatment with exploited children and their families as well the training of mental health providers and professionals across child serving systems to better recognize and respond to the needs of exploited children. She is active in both state and national task forces and working groups addressing this complex public health concern with particular focus on effective mental health interventions and collaborative systems response. She is an approved national trainer and consultant for Trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) with over 25 years’ experience working with maltreated and at-risk children and families in clinical, research, and administrative capacities.

Cassandra Kisiel, PhD

Associate Professor, Director, Center for Child Trauma Assessment, Services and Interventions

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Cassandra Kisiel, Ph.D. is a an Associate Professor and clinical psychologist in the Mental Health Services and Policy Program and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She is the Principal Investigator and Director for the Center for Child Trauma Assessment, Services and Interventions, a center of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) that specializes in helping child-serving systems develop the infrastructure to recognize, understand, assess, and respond to the developmental effects of childhood trauma. Dr. Kisiel has over 20 years of experience specializing in the complex, developmental effects of trauma, dissociation, and child trauma assessment, and evaluation; she has written and lectured extensively on the assessment and treatment of children exposed to complex trauma across child-serving settings. Dr. Kisiel is recognized as one of the leading experts in trauma screening and assessment within the NCTSN. She also has extensive experience in supporting the implementation of evidence-based practices, intervention approaches and training curricula for non-clinical providers, and assessment strategies with practitioners across the country. She has specialized in the use of innovative training, implementation and quality improvement approaches to support practice change within various child-serving settings. She led the initial adaptation and implementation of the Breakthrough Series Collaborative/learning collaborative model for use within child trauma through her former role as Training Director of the NCTSN. Dr. Kisiel is the primary developer of the CANS-Trauma version, including the most recent CANS -Trauma Comprehensive, developed in collaboration with the NCTSN with applications across numerous child-serving systems across the U.S. and in several other countries.

Stacey Kreitz, MSW

Forensic Interview Specialist

Homeland Security Investigations

Stacey Kreitz has over 15 years of experience working with child maltreatment investigations. Stacey began her career with the Washington State Children’s Administration as a Child Welfare Services Social Worker and a Child Protective Services Social Worker assigned to a military investigations unit. After moving across the country, Stacey spent the next five years with the Brown County Human Services Department, in the state of Wisconsin, as both a Child Protective Services Dispositional Worker and Child Protection Services Intake Worker. Stacey worked with the Willow Tree Cornerstone Child Advocacy Center in Green Bay, WI as the dedicated Child Forensic Interviewer from 2011 – 2016. Presently, Stacey is working out of Houston, Texas with the Department of Homeland Security as a Forensic Interview Specialist. Stacey currently conducts victim and witness interviews for any type of investigation conducted by Homeland Security Investigations with an area of emphasis on internet crimes and human trafficking. Stacey primarily utilizes Homeland Security’s Prepare and Predict forensic interviewing guidelines, but is trained in six different forensic interviewing protocols and multiple adaptive forensic interviewing approaches to include Extended Forensic Interviewing and Interviewing Child Victims with Disabilities. Stacey has her BSW from Pacific Lutheran University (Tacoma, WA) and her MSW from the University of Wisconsin Green Bay.

Anouska Kloes, MS

Children's and Youth Trauma Center Haarlem, the Netherlands

Kenter Jeugdhulp

Anouska works as a child psychologist and EMDR therapist at the Children's and Youth Trauma Center Haarlem. Furthermore, she is a traumaspecialist and forensic interviewer at the Multidisciplinary Center for Child Abuse and Neglect. In the past she worked at a juvenile prison and different outpatient clinics. Next to her clinical work she is a guest lecturer at different courses on psychopathology and trauma . She has also given presentations for policy makers of the juvenile prison and for the Ministry of Justice on psychiatric issues and therapy in forensic treatment centers.

Therese Kvist, DDS, PhD

Department of dental medicine

Karolinska Institutet

Therese Kvist, DDS/PhD graduated as specialist in pediatric dentistry in 2017 and became PhD in 2016. She has a current position as assistant professor in pediatric dentistry at the Department of Dental Medicine, Division of Pediatric Dentistry at Karolinska Institutet Stockholm. This work includes clinical work and responsibility for the curriculum of under-and postgraduate education to dentists regarding child maltreatment as well as intimate partner violence. Since 2017, she is affiliated with the Child protection team, Stockholm County Council with placement at the Stockholm Children’s advocacy center. In this part of the work, upon request we perform dental examinations in case of foster care placements as well as forensic dental examinations.

The main subject of research is child maltreatment and its consequences on oral health, oral health behaviors and associated parental abilities. The research comprises of population based studies, record based studies, clinical studies as well as using qualitative methods of thematic analysis. Research is conducted mainly at KI. We work in close interprofessional collaborations to prevent poor oral health and to support and offer dental care to children exposed to child maltreatment.

Sara Landström

University of Gothenburg

(Co-author, but will not be presenting) Sara Landström is an associate professor in psychology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her research interest is legal psychology in general, with focus on reliability and credibility, sexual violence, children's testimony, and interview and interrogation methods.

Sanne Lania, MS

Children's and Youth Trauma Center Haarlem, the Netherlands

Kenter Jeugdhulp

Sanne Lania is department manager of the Children's and Youth Trauma Center. She is a child psychologist, EMDR practitioner and cognitive behavioral therapist. Furthermore, she is a traumaspecialist and forensic interviewer at the Multidisciplinary Center for Child Abuse and Neglect. In the past she worked at a juvenile prison and different outpatient clinics. Next to her clinical work she is a teacher at the National Institute for Education about Child Abuse and teaches at different (postdoc) courses, mainly about trauma treatment, parental training and teaching traumatized children.

Yong Li, PhD

Assistant Professor

California State University, Bakersfield

Yong Li, PhD, LMSW, MA
Assistant Professor
California State University, Bakersfield
yli12@csub.edu
661-232-8551

Dr. Li got his Ph. D. degree in social work from State University of New York, University at Albany in 2013. He also held an MSW degree (2009) from University at Albany, an MA degree Political Science from Zhejiang University, and a BA degree in Teacher Education from Shandong Normal University.
Prior to coming to the U.S. to pursue his MSW and doctoral degrees, Dr. Li spent 4 years as a staff member at the Office of Policies and Regulations, in the Hangzhou Education Bureau in China. Dr. Li currently works as an assistant professor in the Social Work Department at California State University, Bakersfield. He has taught social work courses in the areas of human behavior, research methods, policy, and practice.
Dr. Li’s expertise in research has focused on child welfare and well-being. During his doctoral study, he participated in federal- and state-funded child welfare projects which focused on enhancing child welfare supervision and improving workforce retention. He co-authored a psychometric study on job satisfaction among voluntary child welfare workers and an evaluation study on family treatment drug court. Interested in child well-being, he has also published a few articles on the role of acculturation, family cohesion, and family conflict in shaping the psychological well-being of Latino and Asian immigrants and their children. More recently, Dr. Li has been conducting evaluation studies on the effectiveness of different parenting curricula in improving parenting practices and preventing child maltreatment. Continuing in this direction, he hopes to develop, implement, and evaluate culturally sensitive parenting training programs among Asian and Hispanic immigrant families. Currently, he is in the process of integrating a mainstream parenting program with an immigrant-focused parenting program to better meet the needs of local Chinese immigrant parents.

Lane Lund

The Danish Children Centres

The Danish Children Centre, Region Southern Denmark

Lane is Ma.Ed. in Educational Studies and has more than 15 years of experience in child protection work, including direct provision of services and overseeing the quality of child-protection services in Denmark. Most recently, Lane is charged with cross-disciplinary team-management, personnel supervision and supporting and ensuring the quality of services provided by the Danish Children Centre, Region Southern Denmark.

Keith Lussier, MPA

Children's Services Specialist

USCCB/MRS

Keith Lussier has 5 years of experiencing collaborating with refugee and immigrant populations. He works for General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) as a Senior Functional Analyst. In his current role, he provides support and technical assistance to the Department of Health and Human Services. Previously, he worked as a Children’s Services Specialist with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and as a Refugee Foster Care Consultant for Bethany Christian Services. Keith also has experience with refugee students from his past roles as Language Consultant and Servant Leader with school programs, including Educating for Freedom in Schools in which he developed culturally relevant curriculum for multicultural classrooms. He has a master’s degree in Public Administration and a bachelor’s in Sociology and Spanish.

Carolina Lunde

University of Gothenburg

(Co-author, but will not be presenting) Carolina Lunde is an associate professor in psychology, and works at the department of psychology at University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Research interests include adolescent development in relation to self- and body image, sexuality, internet, and social relations.

Thomas Lyon, JD, PhD

Professor of Law & Psychology

University of Southern California Gould School of Law

Thomas D. Lyon, J.D., Ph.D., research interests include child abuse and neglect, child witnesses, and domestic violence. He is the Judge Edward J. and Ruey L. Guirado Chair in Law and Psychology at the University of Southern California. He is the Past-President of the American Psychological Association’s Section on Child Maltreatment (Division 37) and a former member of
the Board of Directors of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. Dr. Lyon has published over 90 papers in law reviews, psychology journals, and books, has authored or co-authored over 130 research presentations at psychology and law conferences, and has conducted over 260 trainings with judges, attorneys, law professors, social workers, psychologists, and reporters. His work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the United States Department of Justice, the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, the California Endowment, and the Haynes Foundation.

Anthony Mannarino, PhD

Professor, Vice-Chair

Department of Psychiatry; Allegheny Health Network

Anthony P. Mannarino, PhD, is Director of the Center for Traumatic Stress in Children and Adolescents and Vice Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,and Professor of Psychiatry at Drexel University College of Medicine. A leader in the field of child traumatic stress since the 1980s, Dr. Mannarino has conducted extensive research on the clinical course of traumatic stress symptoms in children and the development of effective treatment approaches for traumatized children and their families. He is the recipient of honors including the Child Maltreatment Article of the Year Award from the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC) and the Legacy Award from the Greater Pittsburgh Psychological Association. A past president of APSAC and of the Section on Child Maltreatment of the Society for Child and Family Policy and Practice (Division 37) of the American Psychological Association, he maintains an active clinical practice. With Judith A. Cohen and Esther Deblinger, Dr. Mannarino is coauthor of Treating Trauma and Traumatic Grief in Children and Adolescents, Second Edition, and coeditor of Trauma-Focused CBT for Children and Adolescents: Treatment Applications.

Rebekah Marsh, MA

Professional Research Assistant

University of Colorado School of Medicine, ACCORDS

Shelby McDaniel, CPSW

Recrutiment and Orientation Leader

NCTSN YTF

Shelby McDaniel is an advocate for youth who have experienced trauma, mental health
issues, complex trauma, homelessness, and suicide.
Shelby McDaniel has experienced mental since the age of 13. Shelby
wants to be able to reduce stigma and help create a more successful mental health systems for
not only children but transitional age youth as well. Shelby hopes to encourage others to create
a sense of voice, choice, empowerment, and peer support with each youth that they work with.
She hopes to foster and create resilience in others who are going through similar experiences.
Shelby has been and active member of National Child Traumatic Stress Network since
July 2015, she has worked to reduce stigma for mental health and has been working on a local
level to create a Youth Peer Support program that is trauma informed with multiple
organizations in New Mexico. She currently is the Recruitment and Orientation Leader of the
Youth Task force and working with the NM NCTSN site to figure out how to recruit more youth
locally and bring more of a youth perspective to the providers.
Shelby is a CPSW (Certified Peer Support Worker) who works as a adult peer support
worker for Blue Cross Blue Shield of NM. In this role she meet with members who are in the ER.
She identifies their strengths, barriers, and support systems. She empowers the member’s to
use their voice and choice to help her identify what community resources she should link them
to.
Shelby also has a huge love for animals and believes they are a huge part of the healing
process in difficult times. She runs her own business where she provides pet sitting, boarding,
advice, training, and grooming. She hopes to study how she can incorporate animals and
possibly performing arts into children’s counseling for children who are trying to overcome
trauma.
Shelby hopes to write a book one day. She doesn’t quite know what that will look like
yet. She also plans to go back to college to get her social worker degree either 2019 or 2020.
Shelby feels very blessed and grateful for her opportunities and never regrets going through the
struggles she did. It is a blessing to somewhat rewrite the future in a way.

Mark McGinnis, BA, JD

Judge

State of Wisconsin

Judge Mark McGinnis has been elected as State of Wisconsin Outagamie County Circuit Judge, Branch I, in 2005, 2011, and 2017.

During the last 23 years, Judge Mark McGinnis has instructed courses in more than 40 states to judges and other legal professionals. He has instructed college courses and law school courses in the areas of constitutional law, criminal law, criminal procedure, evidence, traffic law, search and seizures, and administrative law. Judge McGinnis presents on the legal issues of social media and digital data.

Judge McGinnis is a faculty member for the National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada (2007-present), the National Computer Forensics Institute in Hoover, Alabama (2008-present) and the Wisconsin Judicial College (2012-present). Judge McGinnis was recently selected by the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s Chief Justice to be a Dean of the Judicial College.

In 2007, Judge McGinnis participated in the ASTAR (Advanced Science and Technology Adjudication Resource) Fellowship Program and became an ASTAR Fellow in 2009.

Judge McGinnis graduated cum laude from Marquette University (Milwaukee, WI) and the University of Minnesota Law School (Minneapolis, MN). He resides in Appleton with his wife, Jennifer, and their three children, Patrick, Maggie, and Preston.

Kelsey McKay, BA, JD

CEO, Consultant, Attorney

RESPOND Against Violence

Kelsey McKay was a child abuse and domestic violence prosecutor in Travis County, Texas for 12-years exclusively prosecuting strangulation related crimes for half that time. She now trains and consults nationally to implement protocols and help strengthen how communities collaborate, investigate, treat and prosecute strangulation in cases raging from intimate partner violence, human trafficking, sexual assault, child abuse and death cases. She is the founder of McKay Training & Consulting and RESPOND Against Violence, a non-profit organization. She serves on multiple faculties, advisory boards and committees.

Neha Mehta, MD

Medical Director of the Audrey Hepburn CARE Center

Children's Hospital New Orleans

After fellowship, Dr. Mehta remained at Cincinnati Children's Hospital for an additional 2 years as clinical faculty. Then she served as the Medical Director of the Child Abuse Program at Sunrise Children’s Hospital in Las Vegas Nevada and also served as the Medical Director for the Southern Nevada Children’s Assessment Center (CAC). Dr. Mehta worked in Las Vegas for over 9 years during which she served as the Co-Chair for Clark County Child Fatality Review and was awarded the District Attorney’s Meritorious Award for Outstanding Services to the Community. Since October 2012, Dr. Mehta has been serving as the Medical Director of the Audrey Hepburn CARE Center of Children’s Hospital New Orleans Louisiana. Her areas of special interest include: Child Fatality Review, Multidisciplinary Team Education, and Child Abuse Prevention.
Dr. Mehta has been practicing in the field of Child Abuse Pediatrics for over 19 years.

Amy Meyers

Molloy College

Amy Meyers, PhD is an Associate Professor of Social Work at Molloy College. She has presented nationally on sibling abuse, and has consulted for the Administration for Children’s Services in NYC training staff on sibling abuse assessment and detection. She has presented widely in clinical settings in an effort to raise awareness of the long-term implications on the sibling abuse victim and survivor. Dr. Meyers received her doctoral degree and MSW from the CUNY Graduate Center/Hunter College School of Social Work. She has presented nationally on sibling abuse. Dr. Meyers provides trainings for child welfare staff and clinicians throughout the metropolitan NY area where she also maintains a private practice and served as the Vice President of the Metropolitan Chapter of the New York State Society for Clinical Social Workers. She has published in peer-reviewed journals on the topic of sibling abuse and most recently is an invited contributor to The Sage Handbook of Domestic Violence”, a 3-volume handbook from experts in the field.

Brian Miller, PhD

Sole Proprietor

Third Wave Consulting

Brian Miller, Ph.D., is the sole proprietor of ThirdWave Consulting. He is an individual member of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, and chairs the NCTSN Secondary Trauma Supervision Workgroup. He is the developer of the CE-CERT model for intervening with secondary trauma in service providers, and the Safeguarding model of trauma informed supervision, and has provided consultation and trainings nationally and internationally.

Dr. Miller’s experience includes tenure as the director of children’s behavioral health at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah; as the Mental Health Director for Salt Lake County; Director of the Trauma Program for Families with Young Children at The Children’s Center in Salt Lake City; Clinical Director of Davis Behavioral Health; Associate Director of the Utah State Division of Mental Health; and as a psychotherapist in private practice. He holds a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was a Mandel Leadership Fellow. He is the past board president for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Utah Chapter and serves on the editorial review boards for the journals Traumatology and Contemporary Psychotherapy.

Michelle Miller, PhD

National Children's Alliance

Michelle Miller, PhD, LCSW, LCPC, has over 20 years’ experience working in the child welfare field and over 15 years’ experience providing mental health care and clinical supervision to mental health practitioners, in addition to training and implementation of evidence-based practices and treatments. Dr. Miller co-founded the Butte Child Evaluation Center, Montana’s first accredited CAC, in 1998, where she served as Director and MDT member until 2013. Dr. Miller was also instrumental in founding the Montana State Chapter organization of NCA, which she chaired from 2008-2011, and continued to serve as a board member until 2016. Dr. Miller has served on numerous local, state, and national task forces and committees, including the Montana Youth Justice Council, NCA’s Task Committee on Revising Mental Health Standards, and the Montana Mental Health Oversight Advisory Council. In her private practice, Dr. Miller specialized in providing CFTSI and Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT). Dr. Miller has successfully managed several grant-funded projects over the last 17 years.

Dr. Miller currently serves as the NCA Project Coordinator, Mental Health Initiative

Kimberly J. Mitchell, PhD

Research Associate Professor, Psychology

Crimes Against Children Research Center, University of New Hampshire

Kimberly Mitchell is a Research Associate Professor of Psychology at the Crimes against Children Research Center located at the University of New Hampshire. Her areas of research focus on childhood violence exposure, the commercial sexual exploitation of children, technology-involved victimization, violence prevention, and childhood adversity, including childhood exposure to opioid overdose. She is well-versed in several different research methodologies including those involving telephone-based interviews, online surveys, and in-person interviews. She has conducted research with caregivers, adolescents, school staff, law enforcement, and service providers. She has been studying childhood violence exposure for 18 years. With over 120 articles published in peer-referred journals, Dr. Mitchell’s research is both visible and salient. In total, her work has been cited over 7,000 times. Relatedly, Dr. Mitchell has an established history of successful grants and grantsmanship, including being PI on a NIH grant (R21HD086464) in which she developed a national youth firearm risk and safety assessment tool and Co-I on a recent NIJ grant to study the law enforcement response to hate crimes nationally.

Deshunda Mitchell, ME.D

Medical Social Worker

Mary Bridge Children's Hospital, Child Abuse Intervention Department

On April 6, 1998 Deshunda Mitchell began working at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital as a Pediatric Medical Social Worker. Deshunda joined the team in the Child Abuse Intervention Department. As a Pediatric Medical Social Worker she is responsible for psychosocial assessments and interventions regarding children who are suspected victims of child maltreatment. Deshunda participates in pediatric crisis intervention through the emergency department, sexual assault program, physical assault program and pediatric outpatient programs. Deshunda works collaboratively with law enforcement, Child Protection Services, Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, mental health agencies, Joint Base Lewis McChord, multiple Pierce County public schools, Puyallup Tribe and others under the umbrella of the Child Advocacy Center of Pierce County (CAC). She consults with patients, families, community physicians and all agencies within the CAC. Deshunda has provided training at Child Protection Services, Puyallup Tribe, Safe Streets, and employees of MultiCare Health System’s, Women’s Correctional Facility of Washington and various Rotary Club’s. Deshunda continues to strive toward effective parent, family and community education, in an effort to intervene in situations of child abuse and keeping children safe from child maltreatment.

Rosalie Morales, MS

Chief Policy Advisor

Office of the Child Advocate

Rosalie Morales currently serves as the Chief Policy Advisor at the Office of the Child Advocate (OCA) for the State of Delaware. She also staffs the Child Protection Accountability Commission (CPAC), Delaware’s Children's Justice Act (CJA) Task Force, and as such, serves as the state coordinator for both the CJA Grant and Citizen Review Panel, both of which are federal mandates. Additionally, Ms. Morales is the Director of CPAC's Child Abuse and Neglect (CAN) Panel, which is responsible for reviewing and investigating child abuse and neglect death and near-death cases. In addition, she develops and provides training to the child protection system and is an authorized facilitator for Darkness to Light’s Stewards of Children child sexual abuse prevention program. Ms. Morales also teaches in the Child Advocacy Studies (CAST) Certificate Program at Wilmington University. Before coming to OCA, Ms. Morales was employed at the Division of Family Services (DFS) for more than eight years as both a Family Crisis Therapist Supervisor and Investigation Caseworker. She was responsible for conducting child abuse investigations, and then later providing supervision to investigation caseworkers. Ms. Morales attended Washington College in Chestertown, MD, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology. She then attended Wilmington University where she earned her Master of Science degree in Administration of Human Services.

Angela Moreland, PhD

Assistant Professor

National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center Medical University of South Carolina

Angela Moreland, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center (NCVC) at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). She earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Purdue University in 2009 and completed her pre-doctoral clinical internship and post-doctoral research fellowship at the NCVC. Dr. Moreland’s research interests focus on primary and secondary prevention of child abuse and risk factors for maltreatment among high risk parents of young children; as well as dissemination and implementation of evidence-based practice for victims of interpersonal violence and their families. Dr. Moreland has been involved in several externally-funded, large-scale longitudinal projects focused on prevention, treatment, and consequences of interpersonal violence among disadvantaged populations. She recently completed a NIDA K12 on parenting stress among substance-using parents, with particular emphasis on preventing relapse in opioid using parents. Dr. Moreland also serves as Associate Director for the National Mass Violence Victimization Resource Center, funded by the Office for Victims of Crime and Department of Justice.

John Myers, JD

Visiting Professor of Law

University of California, Hastings College of the Law

John is a visiting professor of law at U.C. Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, CA In 2019, John retired after 36 years of teaching law at the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School, in Sacramento, CA. John is a leading expert of legal issues in child abuse, neglect, domestic violence, and family law.

Mia Myhre, PhD

Senior researcher

Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies

Myhre is one of the leading medical experts in Norway on violence against children. Her PhD was on the topic of mapping risk factors for later victimization in children using large scale epidemiological data and clinical data from hospitals. Dr. Myhre has published several papers on the association between child maltreatment, polyvictimization, mental and somatic health in both children and adults.

Kaitlyn Nelson, LCSW

Senior Clinical Case Manager

Angels Foster Family Network

Ms. Nelson serves as a Senior Clinical Case Manager at Angels Foster Family Network, a foster family agency in San Diego specializing in the placement of children ages birth to five in high quality foster homes.

Ms. Nelson earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology at Long Beach State University and completed her Master’s in Social Work at San Diego State University. She became licensed as a Clinical Social Worker in 2017. Ms. Nelson began her career as a Medical Social Worker at Sharp Medical Centers where she rotated the various floors and outpatient cancer center. She also worked at Avalon Hospice and Palliative Care as a Bereavement Counselor providing supportive therapeutic services to family members of those on hospice care. Ms. Nelson volunteers for multiple bereavement camps as a Clinician for children who have lost a parent/guardian or a sibling with Comfort Zone Camp and Experience Camps. This work led her to a passion for working with families through grief and loss. Ms. Nelson enjoys providing clinical support, psychoeducation, ongoing trainings, and research/resources to resource families and has been with Angels since January 2015.

Jennifer Newman, BS

Senior Program Strategist, Exploited Children Division

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

Jennifer Newman is the Senior Program Strategist for NCMEC’s Exploited Children Division (ECD). Joining NCMEC in 2001, Ms. Newman has spent the past seventeen years working on cases, programs, and issues in the fight against the sexual exploitation of children. In her current role, Ms. Newman assists in the growth and development of the ECD’s strategy, policies, roles, and services. Working closely with the management team, Ms. Newman helps implement projects, workflows, policies and systems to enable the ECD to perform at an optimal rate and provide new and enhanced products and services to the public, industry, law enforcement, non-governmental organizations, and other stakeholders.

Shalon Nienow, MD

Child Abuse Pediatrician

Rady Children's Hospital - San Diego/Chadwick Center for Children and Families

Shalon Nienow MD, FAAP is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California San Diego and the Medical Clinical Director at the Chadwick Center for Children and Families at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego. As a Child Abuse Pediatrician she provides medical evaluations for children who are alleged victims of all forms of child abuse/neglect. Dr. Nienow frequently serves as an expert witness in civil and criminal legal proceedings related to all aspects of child maltreatment. Dr. Nienow has conducted research in patterns of disclosure in child sexual abuse as well as methods of testing for sexually transmitted infections in children. She regularly provides trainings to various members of the multidisciplinary team. Dr. Nienow has served on the NCE planning committee for the AAP Section on Child Abuse and Neglect, was an editor for the AAP’s latest publication of the Visual Diagnosis CD, is on the ABP content development team for Maintenance of Certification for the Child Abuse Sub-Board, and was recently elected to the Executive Committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics Counsel on Child Abuse and Neglect. Areas of professional interest include starvation and torture, abusive burn patterns, psychological maltreatment, medical child abuse, disclosure patterns and sexually transmitted infections.

Jennifer O'Brien, PhD

Assistant Professor of Social Work

University of New Hampshire

Jennifer O’Brien is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work and the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. Her research focuses on violence against women and children, with a particular focus on sexual victimization and exploitation. Her research is informed by a decade of practice experience, delivering trauma-based interventions to women and children both domestically and abroad.

Andrea Ocampo, MA

Services Systems Program Coordinator

National Center for Child Traumatic Stress- UCLA

Andrea brings her experience working for the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress supporting both the implementation of trauma-informed practices in child welfare and in integrated-care settings nationwide and the Translation Review Committee as well as, her experience working for UCLA’s Pediatric Approach to Trauma, Treatment and Resilience Team on the development of a training curriculum aimed at transforming the pediatric culture, to identify and address trauma exposure in primary healthcare for children and their families. This experience includes national on-line training that utilizes the Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes, (ECHO) Model.

Andrea Ocampo also, is a Senior Policy Analyst supporting the implementation of Transformational Collaborative Outcome Management (TCOM) Tools (CANS) and the evaluation of children’s systems of care with child welfare and mental health agencies primarily in California.

Prior to moving to Los Angeles, Andrea worked as a research assistant at Northwestern University, developing and reviewing resources and products for clinicians and family members that emphasize accurately assessing and treating the developmental effects of trauma and complex trauma.

Originally from Costa Rica, Andrea earned her Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology and gained extensive experience practicing as a clinical psychologist in trauma-focused assessment and treatments, mental health intervention programs in depression, psychological interventions with underprivileged populations, prevention and promotion in mental health, and child, adolescent, and family therapy while serving as the Director of Psychology Services of a Costa Rican governmental Health Clinic in a marginalized, urban community.

Her primary professional interests lie in the assessment; diagnosis and treatment of interpersonal trauma in the lives of children, with an emphasis on serving traditionally underserved populations. She has a particular interest in making services and interventions relevant for various cultures and optimized for cultural sensitivity to help mental, behavioral health and child welfare providers best address the needs of the children and families.

Marlene O'Neill Laberge, MSW, RSW

Child Abuse Service

Alberta Children's Hospital

Marlene is a Registered Social Worker with 17 years of experience as a child and family therapist, specializing in early childhood development and attachment. She has experience working in the context of Health Care, Education, Community Mental Health and Child Welfare. She is qualified as an expert witness in the areas of children's mental health and parent-child relationships. She has extensive experience developing and delivering mental health training to allied health care professionals, paraprofessionals and parent groups, with a strong focus on capacity building. As part of a multidisciplinary team at Alberta Children's Hospital's Child Abuse Service, Marlene provides assessment, treatment and consultation to parents and their children, who are experiencing complex developmental and psychological difficulties associated with child maltreatment.

Rebecca Orsi, PhD

Research Assistant Professor

Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse & Neglect

Dr. Rebecca Orsi is a Research Assistant Professor at the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect; Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of Colorado. Her research interests include CPS involvement, child well-being, parental substance use, and novel use of integrated administrative data for epidemiological and public health research. She also has experience with focus group research, particularly as it informs quantitative studies. Dr. Orsi's education includes an MS in Statistics and a PhD in Human Resource Studies, with a specialization in Research Methods.

Joy Osofsky, PhD

Professor

Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center

Joy D. Osofsky, Ph.D. is a clinical and developmental psychologist, Paul J. Ramsay Endowed Chair of Psychiatry and Barbara Lemann Professor of Child Welfare at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center (LSUHSC) in New Orleans. Dr. Osofsky has published widely and authored or edited: Trauma in the Lives of Children (Praeger, 2018),Treating Infants and Young Children Impacted by Trauma: Interventions that Promote Healthy Development (American Psychological Association, 2017), Clinical Work with Traumatized Young Children (Guilford, 2011), Young Children and Trauma: Intervention and Treatment (Guilford, 2004),Children in a Violent Society (Guilford, 1997), and Questions Every Judge and Lawyer Should Ask About Infants and Toddlers in the Child Welfare System (National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, 2018). She is past president of the World Association for Infant Mental Health and Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families. She is Clinical Consultant and on the Leadership team for Zero to Three for the Safe Babies Court Team Programs. She played a leadership role in the Gulf Region following Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and was Clinical Director for Child and Adolescent Initiatives for Louisiana Spirit following Hurricane Katrina. She serves as Co-Principal Investigator for the Terrorism and Disaster Coalition for Child and Family Resilience, an NCTSN center. In 2007, Dr. Osofsky received the Sarah Haley Award for Clinical Excellence for trauma work from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and in 2010, she was honored with a Presidential Commendation from the American Psychiatric Association for her work in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In 2014, she was recognized with the Reginald Lourie Award for leadership in infant mental health and outstanding contributions to the health and welfare of children and families.

Cpl. Adrienne Owen

Domestic Violence Policy & Training Coordinator

Delaware State Police

Cpl/3 Adrienne Owen, is a 25 year veteran of the Delaware State Police, beginning her career in 1993. Throughout the past 25 years, Cpl. Owen has been assigned to various assignments, to include Uniform Patrol, Criminal Investigations and Administrative Operations. In 1996, Cpl. Owen was assigned as a detective to DSP’s newly established Domestic Violence Unit. While serving in that capacity, she investigated serious and complex family violence complaints, reviewed all domestic reports written daily by patrol and helped to establish DSP protocol for response to domestic complaints. Cpl. Owen also pursued her interest in working with children, when she was assigned to the Delaware State Police’s Youth Aid Unit in 2004, serving as a School Resource Officer for middle, elementary and special needs schools. During her time as a Domestic Violence Detective and School Resource Officer, Cpl. Owen served as an on-call Victim Services Officer, providing crisis intervention and resource referral to crime victims, survivors and families touched by critical incidents. For the last eight years, Cpl. Owen has served as the Delaware State Police Domestic Violence Policy & Training Coordinator. Her duties in this role include: maintaining DSP’s policy and protocol on domestic violence investigations, child abuse investigations and elder abuse investigations; keeping apprised of recently-enacted, as well as potential forthcoming, domestic-related legislation; keeping apprised of the latest best-practices and investigative trends nationwide, collaborating with fellow system-based and community-based partner agencies; providing training on domestic violence, child abuse and elder abuse to Delaware State Police, as well as other law enforcement, system-based agencies and community based agencies as requested.

Trenee Parker, MA

Director, Division of Family Services

Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth and Their Families

Trenee Parker is the Director of the Division of Family Services located within the Department of Services for Children, Youth and Their Families for the State of Delaware. She has been a member of the DFS team for over 20 years and formerly served as the Deputy Director before being appointed as the Director in January 2018. In her roles as Deputy and Director, Trenee has focused a great deal of attention on issues involving infants with prenatal substance exposure. As a member of the Child Protection and Accountability Commission Subcommittee on Substance Exposed Infants, she was an integral part of developing State legislation which codifies the Federal Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. Trenee has also championed the development of a template for the Plans of Safe Care that is now used statewide.

Sarah Pauter, MPPA

Trauma-Informed Systems Change Specialist

The Center for Child Welfare Trauma-Informed Policies, Programs, and Practices (TIPs Center)

After spending 17 years in the child welfare system before ultimately emancipating or "aging out," Sarah earned a Bachelor’s in Social Work from San Diego State University and a Master’s in Public Policy and Administration from Northwestern University.

Sarah has dedicated her life and career to improving outcomes for vulnerable children and youth, even testifying before Congress and the California Senate on mental health treatment options for young people in foster care. Prior to launching Phenomenal Families, a nonprofit organization that serves expectant and parenting youth, Sarah was the Program Director of the Family & Youth Roundtable, where she developed and enhanced public child-serving systems through policy formulation and implementation. Her efforts were recognized by the San Diego County Child Abuse Prevention Coordinating Council which honored her with their annual STARS award.

Sarah is a former FosterClub California Youth Ambassador, Foster Care Youth and Alumni Policy Council Member, and Co-Chair of the San Diego County Children’s System of Care Council. Currently, she serves as a Trauma-Informed Systems Specialist with the Center on Child Welfare Trauma-Informed Policies, Programs, and Practices (TIPs Center), on the County of San Diego Strengthening Families Advisory Board, Polinksy Children's Center Advisory Board, and the San Diego County Juvenile Justice Commission. She is passionate about preventing intergenerational and cyclical system involvement and ensuring that all youth, regardless of past adversity, can create a strong and flourishing family of their own.

Carrie Paschall

Chief Investigative and Support Services Officer

Dallas Children's Advocacy Center

Carrie Paschall is currently the Chief Investigative and Support Services Officer for the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center where she oversees the management and operations of a forensic interview team and the Family Support Services Program team .

Prior to coming to the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center, she was with the Tarrant County District Attorney’s office as the Child Forensic Interviewer for the Crimes Against Children Unit for 14 years. As a child interviewer, Carrie assisted local, state and federal law enforcement officials by conducting video recorded forensic interviews of children in cases where the child is alleged to have been the victim of or witness to child abuse and other violent crimes. Carrie also occasionally assisted prosecutors in preparing children for court and preparing cross examination of defense experts in the field of child forensic interviewing and sexual abuse dynamics and disclosure. Carrie is often called upon by prosecutors to testify as an expert witness in forensic interviews of children in both civil and criminal cases.

Prior to working for the district attorney’s office Carrie was an investigator for Child Protective Services. While with CPS, Carrie was in two specialized units, a specialized sexual abuse unit where she investigated only allegations of sexual abuse and the TIP Unit, Teamed Investigation Project, where she investigated sexual abuse, severe physical abuse and child death cases. Carrie has been the primary investigator in over 500 child abuse investigations, and as a CPS investigator also conducted video taped forensic interviews of child abuse victims and witnesses. In this role Carrie provided case management, safety assessments and referrals to needed services to children and families.

Carrie has over 1100 hours of training in the field of child abuse and child abuse dynamics. Carrie often speaks to other professionals in the community about how interviews of children are conducted in child abuse investigations, as well as about topics such as grooming, recantation, and disclosure dynamics. She has been a presenter at both local, state and national level. Carrie has a bachelor of arts degree in political science with an emphasis in public law and a minor in criminal justice from the University of Texas in Arlington.

Samuel Peer, PhD

Assistant Professor

Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID

Samuel Peer, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at Idaho State
University. His research predominately focuses on reducing child mental health disparities
through the refinement, dissemination, and implementation of evidence-based prevention
and clinical treatment programs for children and families, particularly parent-child Interaction
therapy (PCIT) and its transdiagnostic applications. Pursuant to those goals, his research
also addresses child maltreatment and trauma, developmental cascades, dissemination and
implementation science, measurement creation and validation, mixed-methodological
innovations, and therapist factors related to child and family mental health utilization and
outcomes. Dr. Peer is a certified PCIT therapist and Director of the Science-Based
Transdiagnostic Research and Interventions for Parenting Effectively and Safely (STRIPES)
Lab.

Jeanette Pérez-Rosselló, MD

Pediatric Radiologist, Assistant Professor

Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School

Dr. Perez-Rossello is a Pediatric Radiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and Assistant Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School. Her clinical focus is musculoskeletal imaging and her primary research interest lies in the imaging evaluation of child abuse and its imitators. She is a co-author of the current imaging recommendations for suspected abuse published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Radiology and the Society for Pediatric Radiology. Dr. Perez-Rossello graduated from Cornell University in 1991 and the University of Rochester School of Medicine in 1995. She completed her radiology residency training at Mount Auburn Hospital and a pediatric radiology fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Perez-Rossello is a lecturer in the Pediatric Radiology Elective at Harvard Medical School. She is a member of the Helfer Society and the AAP Council on Child Abuse and Neglect. She has served as the Chair and is a member of the Child Abuse Committee of The Society for Pediatric Radiology.

Mary Clyde Pierce, MD

Attending Physician, Professor of Emergency Medicine

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Dr. Pierce’s research interest focuses primarily on injuries in children with an emphasis on differentiating abusive from accidental trauma. Dr Pierce collaborates with a multi-disciplinary lab with emphasis on injury biomechanics. This lab combines the expertise of medicine and engineering and utilizes both a clinical and an experimental approach. Dr. Pierce’s research focus is the development of injury plausibility models, including clinical decision rules, for differentiating abusive and accidental trauma in the young child that combines medical, social, biologic, and engineering knowledge. Her interest is also in epigenetics, psychosocial risk factors, factors, ecologic factors, and how child maltreatment confers health problems later in life. This collaborative work results in translational research that is guided by case-based studies with clinical, social, and basic science research, experiments, and modeling directly linked to pertinent clinic issues.

Ronald Powell, CA

President

RJ Powell Consultants Inc.

Ronald J. Powell, Ph.D., is the former Chief Executive Officer of the Desert/Mountain Special Education Local Plan Area, the Desert/Mountain Charter SELPA and the Desert/Mountain Children’s Center. He has over 45 years of public education experience as an administrator, consultant, educator, and adjunct faculty at the University of California, Riverside in the field of special education. As a published author, accomplished public speaker, and a recognized expert in special education and the administration of school-based mental health services, Dr. Powell has been instrumental in the development of a variety of exemplary programs for at-risk youth and has made numerous conference presentations on the subject. Dr. Powell currently serves as a consultant to school districts, county agencies and nonprofit organizations to facilitate the adoption of trauma-informed practices that address the emotional and behavioral health needs of children from hard places. Dr. Powell has served as a Board member with the Apple Valley Unified School District and as a Commissioner on the Board of First 5, Children and Families Commission of San Bernardino County. He is currently on the Executive Board of the Children's Fund of the Inland Empire and the Executive Committee of Breaking Barriers. Dr. Powell has been honored with the Lifetime Advocate Award by the Child Abuse Prevention Council for San Bernardino County, the Lifetime Achievement Award by the California Mental Health Advocates for Children and Youth, the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Special Education Administrator of the Year Award by the Association of California School Administrators, Region 12.

Carrie Purbeck Trunzo, MHA, CPHQ

Improvement Advisor

National Center for Child Traumatic Stress

Carrie Purbeck Trunzo is currently an Improvement Adviser at the Duke University - UCLA National Center for Child Traumatic Stress (NCCTS), where she is a co-developer of the Trauma-Informed Organizational Assessment (TIOA), leads a measurement based care initiative that raises the standard of care for children serve by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN), and designs data communications that raise awareness about the impact of trauma and the work of the NCTSN to key national stakeholders. She is responsible for the quality improvement of research investigating the largest clinically referred national database of children’s mental health records, and develops and maintains the Duke University Institutional Review Board compliance for several projects lead by the NCCTS. Ms. Purbeck Trunzo also has expertise in training and implementation and quality improvement measurement. She received her Master of Hospital Administration (MPH) from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and is a Certified Professional of Healthcare Quality (CPHQ).

Reade Quinton, MD

Associate Professor, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner

Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences

Dr. Reade Quinton is a medical examiner employed by the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences in Dallas, Texas. He attended medical school at LSU Medical Center in New Orleans, Louisiana and completed his pathology residency training and forensic pathology fellowship at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, where he is currently an Associate Professor of the Department of Pathology.
He is board certified in anatomic pathology, clinical pathology, and forensic pathology.

Dr. Quinton has been involved in child fatality investigations for many years, and works closely with the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center. In 2007, Dr. Quinton was named the team leader for the state of Texas in the CDC’s Sudden Infant Death Investigation (SUIDI) initiative.
He is the medical examiner representative of the Texas State Child Fatality Review Team, and currently chairs the team.

Dr. Quinton is the director of the Forensic Pathology training program at the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences. He is an active member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) and the National Association of Medical Examiners (NAME), and is a former chair of the NAME subcommittee on Forensic Pathology Training.

Libby Ralston, PhD

Director Emeritus, Co-Director

Dee Norton Child Advocacy Center, Project BEST

Elizabeth Ralston, Ph.D. was the founding director of the Dee Norton Lowcountry Children’s Center, now the Dee Norton Child Advocacy Center, an accredited Children’s Advocacy Center located in Charleston, SC. and since her retirement has served as the Director Emeritus.

Dr. Ralston is on the clinical faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at the Medical University of South Carolina. She served on the National Children’s Alliance (NCA) Board of Directors, the NCA mental health standard revision committee and grant review team. She has participated with NCA and NCTSN to develop the CAC Director’s Guide to Mental Health services and the NCTSN and NCA 2017 Edition: CAC Director’s Guide to Quality Mental Healthcare. She currently serves on the SC Foster Care Advisory Committee, the SC Trauma Development Committee and the chair of the SC Children’s Justice Act Task Force.

Dr. Ralston serves as the co-director of Project BEST a twelve year initiative funded by The Duke Endowment to ensure that all traumatized children in South Carolina who need it have access to evidence based Trauma Focused-Cognitive Behavior Therapy.

Ashley Rambeau, MSW, MS

SAFE Home Study Supervisor

Angels Foster Family Network

Ms. Rambeau serves as the Home Study Supervisor at Angels Foster Family Network, a foster family agency in San Diego specializing in the placement of infants and toddlers in high quality foster homes.

Ms. Rambeau attended Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington where she attained a Bachelor’s degree with a double major in Psychology and Women’s Studies. In her junior year of college Ms. Rambeau participated in a study abroad program focused on child development and diversity in Copenhagen, Denmark. Throughout college Ms. Rambeau worked as a respite care provider for young children with developmental delays and disabilities and as a childcare provider for underprivileged children. Ms. Rambeau earned a Master of Science in Child Development from the Erikson Institute in Chicago, Illinois, with a specialization in Infancy and Child Life. Ms. Rambeau then went on to attain a Master of Social Work degree from Loyola University Chicago, with a specialization in children and families. Ms. Rambeau interned at the Fussy Baby Network in Chicago, where she conducted infant parent psychotherapy and facilitated weekly psycho-education / support groups for infants and families from diverse ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds. Ms. Rambeau then interned at the Perinatal Family Support Center at the Evanston Hospital, where she provided individual, couples, and family therapy. In this role Ms. Rambeau co-facilitated a weekly support group for women hospitalized with high-risk pregnancies and supported families with complex needs and infants born prematurely and hospitalized in the NICU. Ms. Rambeau also co-facilitated a support group for families dealing with the death of a child. Throughout graduate school Ms. Rambeau continued to provide respite care and also worked as an assistant teacher in a wraparound program for families impacted by HIV/AIDS. Ms. Rambeau recently completed an intensive year-long clinical course in Adoption Competency.

For the past ten years Ms. Rambeau has worked with children ages birth to five in the San Diego’s child welfare system as a Developmental Specialist; Early Childhood Trauma Therapist; Foster-adoptive social worker; Home Study Evaluator; and currently, as the Supervisor of Angels’ Home Study Evaluation team.

Nicole Rooney, JD

Deputy District Attorney

San Diego District Attorney

Nicole Rooney has been a deputy district attorney since 1999, and is currently assigned to the
North County Branch as a team leader. From 2004–2016, she worked in the Family Protection Division
as a team leader, focusing on physical child abuse and child abuse homicide. Ms. Rooney has tried
88 jury trials, including 12 homicides, and in 2017, she was recognized by the San Diego County
Deputy District Attorneys Association as the prosecutor of the year. She had previously been recognized
with outstanding achievement awards in 2014 and 2008. Ms. Rooney has taught on the topics of
evidence, child abuse, expert witnesses, criminal law, trial advocacy and domestic violence for CDAA,
NDAA, the International Conference on Family Maltreatment, in-house, and for local agencies.

Maria Rosales-Lambert

Program Director and Bi-lingual Forensic Interviewer

Oklahoma Interviewing Services, INC

Maria Rosales-Lambert is currently the Program Director and Bi-lingual Forensic Interviewer at Oklahoma Interviewing Services, INC, where she provides forensic interviews and trainings for law enforcement agencies, Department of Human Services, Free-Standing Multidisciplinary Teams and Child Advocacy Centers throughout the state of Oklahoma. She has conducted thousands of forensic interviews of child victims and witness, and trained thousands of professionals in Oklahoma. She has also trained nationally, and in Canada and Guatemala. Ms. Rosales-Lambert has served as a faculty member with the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, ChildFirst/Finding Words Oklahoma, and the Oklahoma Commission on Children & Youth. She previously trained for Child Abuse Training Coordination in Oklahoma, the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children and the National Child Advocacy Center. She was a Police Officer for over five years with the Ft Smith Police Department in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Ms. Rosales-Lambert is a native of Mexico.

Janet Rosenzweig, MS, PhD, MPA

Executive Director

The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children

Leslie Anne Ross, Psy.D.

Director of Implementation, CCCT Curriculum

NCTSN

For more than fifteen years, Dr. Ross has overseen programs in research, evaluation, training, and implementation of evidence-based practices and trauma-informed care for children and families at Children’s Institute, Inc. in Los Angeles, CA. She was formerly the Vice President of the Child Trauma Center at CII and the PI for their National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) program. She is currently the Director at the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress of CCCT Implementation and training across the country and a Faculty Member for the NCTSN DoD Training Academy on CCCT training and the Academy Wellness Center focused on reducing the risk of Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS) for Military Family Advocacy Providers and New Parent Support Staff. Dr. Ross is the co-founder of the NCTSN STS National Collaborative Group which focused on prevention and intervention of Secondary Traumatic Stress associated with providers who work with children and families exposed to trauma. In addition, she is co-author of The Secondary Traumatic Stress Inventory (STSI-OA) and STS Organizational Change Framework and she facilitates local and national training and consultation on Trauma-Informed Care including reducing the risk of Secondary Traumatic Stress and building a resilient workforce.

Sylvia Rowlands, PhD

Senior Vice President

The New York Foundling

Dr. Sylvia Rowlands, Senior Vice President of Evidence-Based Community Programs at The New York Foundling, has led the organization’s use of evidence-based practices, and her pioneering work has made The Foundling a global leader in the field. She manages the world’s largest evidence-based practice portfolio with over 400 licensed professional staff and 200 paraprofessionals under her direction. Under Dr. Rowlands’ leadership, The Foundling created its Implementation Support Center (ISC) and has worked with numerous service providers and governmental entities in the U.S. and abroad to implement effective, evidence-based initiatives, including in Australia, England, Scotland, Canada, New Zealand, Russia, China, and Japan. She has a twenty-five-year background of social service and health care industry leadership, large system transformation expertise and executive management experience.

Hon. Melanie Roy, MA

Judge

Cour du Quebec

Judge, Court of Québec, Youth Chamber

Mélanie Roy is a judge since 2011. She sits exclusively in matters of adoption, youth protection and juvenile criminal justice. Before her appointment, she practiced for 15 years in the legal department of a Youth Center (Director of Youth Protection).

Stacy Ryan-Pettes, PhD

Assistant Professor

Baylor University

Dr. Ryan-Pettes completed her Ph.D. at Emory University. She is an Assistant Professor at Baylor University in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience. Her clinical and research focus is with children and adolescents with disruptive behavior problems and who engage in risky behavior, including substance use, who often present with trauma histories. Before joining the faculty at Baylor, Dr. Ryan-Pettes was an Assistant Professor and clinic director of an adolescent substance abuse treatment clinic at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. As part of her work as clinic director, she partnered with clinics offering complementary services to disseminate training in evidence-based assessment and treatment of child trauma. Dr. Ryan-Pettes has completed workshops and observed supervision in the use of trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy. She is currently a co-investigator on a SAMHSA-funded NCTSN grant, working alongside experts in the field of child trauma and experts who have extensive experience working with Child Advocacy Centers.

Blair Sadler, JD

President/CEO –Retired

Rady Children Hospital-San Diego

Blair Sadler, J.D., is a senior fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and a member of the faculty at the University of California, San Diego’s School of Medicine and Rady School of Management. He served as President and CEO of Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego from 1980 to 2006. Mr. Sadler served on the board of the Center for Health Design for 18 years and has been deeply involved in developing the business case for building better hospitals through evidence-based design. He is a strategic advisor to Health Care Without Harm and its Healthy Hospital Initiative, applying lessons learned from IHI’s 100,000 Lives campaign and 5 Million Lives campaign to support hospital sustainability. He is a graduate of Amherst College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Sjur Sætren

Sjur Sætren is a last year Masters student in clinical psychology. His research interests are related to emotion regulation both at a biological, as well as on a cognitive behavioral level. He has also published on resilience in adolescents. His Masters thesis is on the topic of the interplay between child maltreatment, cognition and mental health problems in adolescents.

Mary Sanders, PhD

Clinical Associate Professor

Stanford Medical School

Mary J. Sanders, PhD, is Clinical Associate Professor at Stanford University Medical School in the Division of Child Psychiatry. She is Program Director of the Comprehensive Care Inpatient Unit at Stanford. She has published and presented nationally in the areas of child abuse, Munchausen by proxy, and eating disorders.

Benjamin E. Saunders, PhD

Professor, Associate Director

Medical University of South Carolina

Dr. Ben Saunders is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, SC. There he serves as the Associate Director of the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center and the National Mass Violence and Victimization Resource Center. Dr. Saunders received his PhD in clinical social work from the Florida State University in 1982; a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy from Virginia Tech in 1979; and a BA, in religious studies from the University of South Florida in 1977. He is a Licensed Independent Social Worker-Clinical Practice, a member of the Academy of Certified Social Workers, and a Diplomate in Clinical Social Work. His research, training, and clinical interests include the initial and long term impact of violence and abuse on children and adolescents; the epidemiology of trauma, violence, and abuse; response to mass violence events; treatment approaches for abused children and their families; and effective methods for disseminating, training, and implementing evidence supported interventions in community service agencies. His work has been funded by government and private agencies such as the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Justice, the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Office for Victims of Crime, the U.S. Department of the Navy, The Duke Endowment and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. In 2001 Dr. Saunders received the Research Career Achievement Award from the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children and in 2008 was invited to deliver the APSAC William Friedrich Memorial Lecture. In addition to his research and service activities, Dr. Saunders provides clinical supervision, consultation, training, and program consultation concerning mental health treatment of abused and traumatized children and their families, and is a frequent lecturer and trainer at national and international conferences.

Mary Sawicki, JD

Senior Attorney

Association of Prosecuting Attorneys

Mary Sawicki joined the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys as a Senior Attorney in the Child Abuse Prosecution Project in February 2016. Previously, Attorney Sawicki was a prosecutor for 23 years in the Worcester County, MA District Attorney’s Office. For a majority of those 23 years, Attorney Sawicki was the Chief of the Child Abuse Prosecution Unit. In addition, Attorney Sawicki was a Senior Attorney for the National District Attorneys Association’s National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse. Most recently, Attorney Sawicki was a Practitioner in Residence at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, MA.

Paula Schaeffer, MA

Program Coordinator

Yale University

F. David Schneider, MD, MSPH

Chair, Family Medicine

University of Texas - Southwestern

F. David Schneider, M.D., is Professor and Chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Dr. Schneider earned his medical degree at the Boston University School of Medicine. Following his residency in family medicine at Duke University he received advanced training in academic family medicine through a fellowship at the University of Missouri, where he also earned a master of science in public health in epidemiology.Prior to his arrival at UT Southwestern, Dr. Schneider was Chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Saint Louis University from 2008 to 2017. Prior to his time in St. Louis, he served as a faculty member at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, where he was also Director of medical student education, residency program director, and vice chair. Dr. Schneider is the founding President of the Academy on Violence and Abuse, and he serves on the board of directors of the Association of Departments of Family Medicine. He previously served as Chair of the National Health Collaborative on Violence and Abuse, President of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians, and Chair of the American Academy of Family Physicians Commission on Public Health.

Candace H. Schoppe, MD

Assistant Professor, Medical Examiner

University of Texas Southwestern Medical School

Candace H. Schoppe, MD, is a forensic pathologist at the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences and Assistant Professor of Pathology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, Texas. Dr. Schoppe began her career in forensic science as a laboratory technician/ forensic examiner at Forensic Consultant Services in Fort Worth, Texas while attending college at Austin College in Sherman, Texas. She attended medical school at the University of Texas – Houston Medical School in Houston, Texas and completed a pathology residency at Wake Forest University/ Baptist Medical Center in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Following her residency, she completed a forensic pathology fellowship and a neuropathology and cardiac pathology fellowship at the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner in New York, New York. Dr. Schoppe is board certified in anatomic, clinical, and forensic pathology.

Hon. Joseph Seidlin, JD

District Court Judge, 5th Judicial District of Iowa

5th Judicial District of Iowa

Randye Semple, PhD

Associate Professor

University of Southern California

Randye J. Semple, PhD is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at USC and Director of Programs at the USC Adolescent Trauma Training Center, which is a Category II training and services adaptation center of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN). Her research and clinical interests are in the application of mindfulness to psychological health and well-being with particular focus on the development and evaluation of mindfulness-based interventions for children and adolescents in clinic and school settings. Dr. Semple has co-authored two books for clinicians and K-12 teachers: Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Anxious Children (New Harbinger Publications, 2011) and The Mindfulness Matters Program for Children and Adolescents (Guilford, 2019), as well as more than 40 scientific publications. Dr. Semple serves on the steering committees for Mindful USC and the Center for Mindfulness Science, and on the research committee of the American Mindfulness Research Association. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Columbia University and is licensed to practice in New York and California.

Tom Sexton, PhD

Developer

Functional Family Therapy & Care4

Thomas L. Sexton is a Professor Emeritus at Indiana University. He is one of the model developers of Functional Family Therapy and is author of Functional Family Therapy in Clinical Practice (2010) and the Handbook of Family Therapy (2003 & 2015). He is a member of the APA Treatment Guidelines Steering Committee, Chair of the Family Psychology
Specialty Council and writes extensively about evidence-based practices, particularly in Family Psychology. Dr. Sexton is a licensed psychologist (IN), a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and a Board Certified Family Psychologist (ABPP). He is the Editor for Couple and Family Psychology: Research and Practice, and past President of the Board for Couple and Family Psychology & the Society for Family Psychology. He was the 2011 Family Psychologist of the Year.

Lindsay Shepard, MSW, MSc

Program Manager

University of Utah Department of Pediatrics

Lindsay Shepard, LCSW, MSW, MSc is a program manager for the Pediatric Integrated Post-trauma Services (PIPS) project, a Category II National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) grant at the University of Utah, to develop and implement a care process for child traumatic stress in children's advocacy center (CAC), primary care, and emergency department settings. She is also a trauma therapist with training in Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), Alternatives for Families Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (AF-CBT), and Child and Family Traumatic Stress Intervention (CFTSI). She is a PhD candidate in social work at the University of Utah.

Jane F. Silovsky, PhD

Professor, Children’s Hospital Foundation – Jean Gumerson Chair

University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center

Dr. Silovsky is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC). She serves as the CMRI/Jean Gumerson Endowed Chair and Director of the Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (CCAN). Since 1996, Dr. Silovsky has been the Director for the Treatment Program for Children with Problematic Sexual Behavior (PSB; funded by the Oklahoma Department of Human Services (OKDHS), Oklahoma Juvenile Bureau, and Oklahoma Juvenile Affairs (OJA)). She is a licensed psychologist and actively provides treatment and supervision for treatment groups serving these youth with PSB and their families. Dr. Silovsky is one of the primary developers of the Preschool Treatment Program for Children with Problematic Sexual Behaviors (PSB-CBT-P). With Drs. Bigfoot and Burris, Dr. Silovsky facilitated the development of Honoring Children, Respectful Ways: Treatment for Native American Children with Sexual Behavior Problems training and treatment manuals, which is a cultural adaptation of the treatment for children with PSB through the Indian Country Child Trauma Center (ICCTC; previously funded through SAMHSA). Dr. Silovsky has a an active research program examining the typology, characteristics, treatment outcome, and implementation of evidence-based treatments for youth with problematic sexual behavior, as reflected in peer reviewed publications, a book, book chapters, and factsheets for national organizations (i.e., the National Center on the Sexual Behavior of Youth- NCSBY, National Children’s Alliance, and the National Child Traumatic Stress Network) on the topic. Dr. Silovsky co-guest edited the Special Issue on Children with Sexual Behavior Problems for the journal, Child Maltreatment. She has multiple research publications on children with PSB, including a meta-analysis on treatment outcome studies completed with a former doctoral student under her supervision, Dr. St. Amand. National training and technical assistance on youth with problematic sexual behavior is provided through our National Center on the Sexual Behavior of Youth (NCSBY), which Dr. Silovsky directs and is funding through grants with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Ane-Marthe Solheim Skar, PhD

Project Leader / Post doc

Norwegian Centre on Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies / Dep. of Psychology, University of Oslo

PhD, MA Ane-Marthe Solheim Skar is currently working as a project leader of a national-wide implementation of Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) at the Norwegian Center for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies (NKVTS), as well as holding a postdoctoral position at the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo. Academic interests include prevention, trauma treatment and recovery, global and public mental health promotion, and evaluation and implementation research. Skar is supervising students at master, specialist, and PhD level related to implementation, prevention, and mental health. She has worked in both developed and developing countries, with low-risk and high-risk populations, including general population samples, trauma exposed children, prisoners, and orphaned and vulnerable children and been the primary investigator of projects in Mozambique (evaluation of an intervention for professional child care providers) and Colombia (RCT related to child violence prevention). Currently her main research focus is on implementation strategies to take evidence-based treatments into practice, or more specifically, how leaders can lead the implementation of PTSD treatment for children.

Kim Skidmore, BA

Assistant Director of Forensic Services

Dallas Children's Advocacy Center

Kim Skidmore is currently the Assistant Director of Forensic Services at the Dallas Children's Advocacy Center and has completed over 2000 interviews of children. As the Assistant Director of Forensic Services, Kim assists local, state, and federal law enforcement officials by conducting video recorded forensic interviews of children in cases where the child is alleged to have been the victim of or witness to child abuse and other violent crimes. Kim has presented nationally on interviewing compliant victims and the intersection of domestic violence and child abuse. Kim supervises a team of 7 interviewers that serve Dallas County, TX. Prior to that, Kim earned her Bachelor's Degree from Austin College, located in Sherman, TX. Kim has also served at the Fannin County Children's Advocacy Center in Bonham, TX as a Program Specialist/Forensic Interviewer. Kim also has CPS (Child Protective Services) experience in Dallas County and was assigned to a specialized unit that handled cases of sexual abuse, serious physical abuse, and child deaths. Kim has also worked at the Ella Mae Brown Shelter for Domestic Violence in Sherman, TX. Kim Skidmore is currently the Assistant Director of Forensic Services at the Dallas Children's Advocacy Center and has completed over 2000 interviews of children. As the Assistant Director of Forensic Services, Kim assists local, state, and federal law enforcement officials by conducting video recorded forensic interviews of children in cases where the child is alleged to have been the victim of or witness to child abuse and other violent crimes. Kim has presented nationally on interviewing compliant victims and the intersection of domestic violence and child abuse. Kim supervises a team of 7 interviewers that serve Dallas County, TX. Prior to that, Kim earned her Bachelor's Degree from Austin College, located in Sherman, TX. Kim has also served at the Fannin County Children's Advocacy Center in Bonham, TX as a Program Specialist/Forensic Interviewer. Kim also has CPS (Child Protective Services) experience in Dallas County and was assigned to a specialized unit that handled cases of sexual abuse, serious physical abuse, and child deaths. Kim has also worked at the Ella Mae Brown Shelter for Domestic Violence in Sherman, TX.

Pernille Spitz, MA

Head of The Danish Children Centre Copenhagen

The Danish Children Centre Copenhagen

Pernille Spitz is a licensed psychologist, supervisor, and specialist in psychotherapy. Pernille is employed as the head of The Danish Children Centre Copenhagen – one of five regional child advocacy centres in Denmark. Pernille has worked within the field of child abuse and neglect in public service in the Community of Copenhagen since 2001. Her main interests are inter-agency case work management and relational coordination in cases of child abuse and how to make the different agencies work together in favour of the child

Ginny Sprang, PhD

Executive Director

University of Kentucky Center on Trauma and Children

Ginny Sprang, Ph.D., is a Professor in the College of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry at the University of Kentucky, and the Executive Director of the UK Center on Trauma and Children. Dr. Sprang is the Principal Investigator of multiple federal and state grants that examine child traumatic stress, treatment effectiveness, and best practices protocols for a wide range of trauma survivors. Dr. Sprang serves as a Steering Committee member for the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, and is co-chair of the Secondary Traumatic Stress Committee for the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. She served as a Special Interest Group Chair for the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies for 13 years. Dr. Sprang currently serves as a consultant to the Department of Justice, Office of Victims of Crime. Dr. Sprang has published extensively in the area of child traumatic stress, commercial sexual exploitation of minors, victimization, and secondary traumatic stress.

John Stirling, MD

Pediatrician

Rady Children's Hospital - San Diego/Chadwick Center for Children and Families

John Stirling, MD, FAAP, is a pediatrician with career interests in general pediatrics, child abuse, and foster care medicine. He currently serves on the medical staff of the Chadwick Center at San Diego’s Rady Children’s Hospital.

Premi Suresh, MD

Assistant Professor of Pediatrics

Rady Children's Hospital - San Diego/Chadwick Center for Children and Families

Dr. Premi Suresh is a child abuse pediatrics specialist in the Chadwick Center for Children and Families at Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego and an assistant professor of in the Department of Pediatrics at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

Dr. Suresh completed her pediatrics residency at Children's Hospital and Research Center in Oakland, Calif. in 2006. After working as a hospitalist and a sexual assault forensic examiner for two years, she pursued a fellowship in child abuse pediatrics at the Chadwick Center for Children and Families at Rady Children's, which she completed in 2010.

Board-certified in child abuse pediatrics, Dr. Suresh currently enjoys clinical work in a variety of settings as an attending pediatrician.

Moira Szilagyi, MD, PhD

Professor of Pediatrics

University of California Los Angeles

Moira Szilagyi MD, PhD is Professor of Pediatrics at UCLA and serves as both Section Chief of Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics and Interim Division Chief of General Pediatrics. She received her PhD in Biochemistry in 1980 and her MD in 1984 from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and completed her residency at the same institution in 1990. Prior to her arrival at UCLA in 2014, she was Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester School of Medicine where she was Director of Starlight Pediatrics, a nationally-recognized integrated care medical home for children in foster and kinship care. Dr. Szilagyi serves in an advisory capacity to Los Angeles County Department of Child and Family Services, provides pediatric primary care services in one of their Child Welfare Hubs, and works on child welfare issues with Casey Family Foundation and the Pritzker Center at UCLA. As past Chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Foster Care, Adoption and Kinship Care, she continues to work on advocacy issues with the AAP's Legislative Office in Washington DC. In addition to research on the developmental and mental health issues of children in foster care, Dr. Szilagyi edited Fostering Futures, the AAP's national guidelines for children and adolescents in foster care, and the AAP's policy statements and technical reports on this topic. Dr. Szilagyi has also authored several articles on childhood trauma and its impact life-course outcomes. She is PI of a SAMHSA National Child Stress Initiative of which Dr. Forkey from the University of Massachusetts is PD. This grant is focused on transforming the culture of pediatric care to focus on the attachment relationship as the vehicle for preventing and healing from childhood trauma and is done in partnership with Tammy Hurley and Mary Crane PhD of the AAP.

Machelle Madsen Thompson, PhD, LCSW

Researcher and Adjunct Teaching Faculty

Florida State University

Machelle Madsen Thompson, Ph.D., LCSW, conducts research and teaches at Florida State University. Her research focuses on protective factors and interventions that increase resilience with those who have experienced trauma. She teaches courses including Social Policy, Diversity in Social Work Practice, Counseling Children & Adolescents, and Child Welfare Practice. She has been an interventionist for over 20 years focusing on counseling high-risk children, adolescents and families experiencing trauma, poverty, and abuse. Machelle is on the board of directors of the Academy on Violence and Abuse and presents internationally on the implementation of protective factors in school, counseling, foster care, medical, and high-risk community settings. She co-authored the Trauma Resilience Scale, the Trauma Resilience Scale for Children, and the Escala de Resiliencia a Trauma para Niños which have been used across the world. She trains professionals in how to specifically assess and implement protective factors with youths. She continues her measurement research for Asian children with Shanghai Children's Medical Center and the Sheng Kung Hui Lady MacLehose Centre as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar, 2018.

Susan Timmer, PhD

Director of Mental Health Research

UC Davis CAARE Center

Dr. Susan Timmer is a research psychologist and the Director of Mental Health Research at the CAARE Center, and Director of Training at the PCIT Training Center in the Department of Pediatrics, University of California Davis Children’s Hospital. During the last decade, Dr. Timmer’s primary research interests and publications address the treatment effectiveness of Parent Child Interaction Therapy with different high-risk populations, including maltreating families, families experiencing domestic violence, foster families, adoptive families, and when mothers are depressed. Her research has also explored the effects of family violence on children’s social-emotional development and on parent-child interactions. Much of her recent work has been involved in testing and evaluating different training models to disseminate and implement PCIT, as well as studying the effectiveness of PC-CARE. She is a co-developer of PC-CARE and is the principal investigator of a program implementing PC-CARE with foster children.