November 20, 2019

APSAC is pleased to bring you the latest issue of the APSAC Advisor, edited by Christopher Greeley, MD, MS, with special sections edited by Kenneth Feder, PhD; Frank Vandervort, JD; and Kathleen Faller, PhD. This issue contains contains articles on hot topics in child maltreatment, including a special "Contested Issues" section featuring pro and con points of view of current, controversial issues in our field. Articles in this issue include:

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• Commentary: The Credibility of Child Protective Services Rests on the Integrity of the Department Director | Daniel Pollack

• Governors as Policymakers: Child Welfare as an Election Issue | Mary Elizabeth Collins

• Book Review: Medical Evaluation of Child Sexual Abuse: A Practical Guide (4th Ed.) | Debra Esernio-Jenssen

• Introduction to the Special Section | Kathleen Coulborn Faller

• Introduction: How Should Child Welfare Respond to Substance Use in Pregnancy | Kenneth Feder

• How Should We Respond to Pregnancy and Substance Use? | Martin Guggenheim and Lynn Paltrow

• To Protect and Provide for Children, Prental Substance Use Must be Considered Abuse | Frank E. Vandervort and Vincent J. Palusci

• Response to: How Should We Respond to Pregnancy and Substance Use? | Frank E. Vandervort and Vincent J. Palusci

• Response to: To Protect and Provide for Children, Prenatal Substance Use Must be Considered Abuse | Martin Guggenheim and Lynn Paltrow

• The Indian Child Welfare Act: A Brief Overview to Contextualize Current Controversies | Frank E. Vandervort

• The Indian Child Welfare Act as the "Gold Standard" | Matthew L.M. Fletcher and Kathryn E. Fort

• The Indian Child Welfare Act: In the Best Interests of Children? | Kathryn A. Piper

• Response to: The Indian Child Welfare Act as the "Gold Standard" | Kathryn A. Piper

• Response to: The Indian Child Welfare Act: In the Best Interests of Children? | Matthew L.M. Fletcher and Kathryn E. Fort.

Plus our regular features, including the News of the Organization, an APSAC Research to Practice Brief highlighting the 2018 Child Maltreatment Article of the Year, and a Washington Update.

November 14, 2019

Be the first to know about APSAC events, read our publications, find new professional resources, and the latest from fellow APSAC members in the APSAC Newsletter. Read APSAC's November news and subscribe to receive the latests updates from APSAC!

November 13, 2019

APSAC is pleased to bring you our latest edition of the APSAC Alert! This edition, authored by Vincent J. Palusci, MD, MS, FAAP, provides a summary of recent research and best practices for responding to sudden infant death. 

November 08, 2019

The Fall 2019 issue of The Consultant, the California Professional Society on the Abuse of Children's (CAPSAC) quarterly newsletter, is now available. Inside this resource, you'll find:

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1. Announcements of upcoming events and trainings

2. An application for the Paul Chrissy Graduate Student Research Grant

3. “Grandparent-Headed Families: A Vulnerable Population” by Susan J. Kelley, PhD

4. Call for Nominations for the Neal Snyder Outstanding Service Award

November 07, 2019

In order for APSAC to achieve our goal of strengthening practice through knowledge, we strive to ensure that up-to-date, high quality research results are reaching the practitioners who need it most. To accomplish this, APSAC has recruited professionals working in psychology, social work, medicine, child welfare, and law to write brief translational summaries of articles from Child Maltreatment. These Research to Practice Briefs are designed to clearly highlight policy and practice implications of the findings, and are available on the APSAC website.

In 2018, APSAC partnered with a University of Michigan classroom to turn the Research to Practice Brief into an assignment with the opportunity for professional review and publication. Six students briefs were published.

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APSAC is proud to share our inaugural 2018 Research to Practice Brief Compendium, which includes all APSAC Research to Practice Briefs produced in 2018, including the student briefs produced in the classroom partnership. Please share this publication with colleagues, students, and anyone who might find it useful.

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If you are interested in bringing the Research to Practice brief to your classroom, would like to volunteer as a reviewer of student briefs, or would like to write briefs, please contact Bri Stormer. 

November 05, 2019

The Vital Signs series from the CDC, launched in 2010, addresses a single, important public health topic each month. This month’s edition presents CDC’s first ever comprehensive estimates of the potential to improve Americans’ health by preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). ACEs and their harms are preventable using the best available evidence to create safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments for all children and families. APSAC is proud to share the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) article “Estimated Proportion of Adult Health Problems Attributable to Adverse Childhood Experiences and Implications for Prevention — 25 states, 2015–2017”. This report underscores the importance of all our work to reduce the harms of child maltreatment. We invite you to explore and share this valuable resource from the CDC.

October 04, 2019

Since its establishment by executive order in 2012, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) has protected hundreds of thousands of undocumented persons who arrived in the United States as children from deportation. The oldest DACA recipients are now in their 30s, and many have children--in fact, over 250,000 of them. They are beloved of many. They are as American as any. But in September 2017, DACA was rescinded which would have had the effect of immediately terminating work authorization and putting individuals in jeopardy of removal. Plaintiffs filed suit in California and New York, and APSAC supported the DACA defenders in each case, beginning in March 2018 with our brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of the University of California Regents. The cases ultimately reached the United States Supreme Court, where APSAC again supported the DACA defenders--this time leading a large group of 35 additional child advocacy and pediatric organizations and medical experts including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Center on Law and Social Policy. 

In filing this brief, APSAC strongly opposes the needless termination of DACA, a critically important protection afforded to persons who arrived in the United States as children and have made lives and families here in the only home they know.

Read the brief here. The statements of additional amicus parties are contained in the Appendix, here.

September 09, 2019

Forty-five national organizations and 157 statewide groups have endorsed a letter to Congress deploring the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s treatment of children trying to migrate with their parents into the U.S., calling it child abuse.

The letter, sent by The National Child Abuse Coalition and addressed to Senate and House Leadership said, “Many of the conditions faced by these children violate child abuse statutes all around the country.”

The letter cites “separation, detention, cages, deplorable physical and hygiene conditions, bullying and intimidation by guards” as practices that are “in direct conflict with what science tells us about healthy child development.”

The national organizations signing the letter include Child Welfare League of America, The American Psychological Association, The Children’s Defense Fund, Prevent Child Abuse America, The National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, and The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. Many of these professional societies and organizations, who also belong to the National Health Collaborative on Violence and Abuse have also endorsed a statement calling for proper care of immigrant children in federal custody and offering their expertise and support to Congress.

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“The frustration of professionals dedicated to promoting the health and welfare of children has never been higher,“ said Janet Rosenzweig, APSAC executive director. “To see so many principles of child welfare practice ignored is astonishing.”

“Science has shown the devastating impact that trauma can have on the developing brains of children,” said David Corwin, APSAC president. “I believe that most Americans do not condone our government causing permanent psychological injury to these children just as they do not condone child abuse by anyone in this country – it is totally unacceptable that our government is creating conditions that threaten the long-term mental health of these children.”

Despite the official end to the Administration’s zero tolerance policy, hundreds of children are still being separated and detained, the letter to Congress says. Warren Binford, an APSAC member and one of the legal experts who in June discovered hundreds of children being warehoused at the Clint Border Patrol Facility in Texas, warned, “We are at a crossroads in our nation’s history. Hundreds of interviews show that children are being routinely and systematically abused and neglected at the hands of our government. We cannot allow the mistreatment of children to be normalized or ignored. It is critical that every person in the U.S.
who cares about children speak out against these inhumane practices.”
 

In yet another effort to spur Congressional action and raise public awareness, on September 11 and 12, some of the nation’s top pediatric experts in medicine, psychology, law, and social work will conduct briefings for the House and Senate to support Congressional leadership in ending the systematic maltreatment of these children in U.S. custody.
 

December 05, 2017

APSAC is pleased to share that our Board of Director voted to make all Guidelines for Practice available for free! Guidelines are developed by National Interdisciplinary Guidelines Task Forces and include concise, data-based information on key areas of practice in child maltreatment. APSAC Guidelines for Practice are vetted through a rigorous, multi-layered peer review process, involving subject matter experts not on the task force, APSAC members, legal counsel, and APSAC's Board of Directors. You can access our Practice Guidelines here. 

APSAC believes that all professionals working with children and families involved in child maltreatment need access to accurate, current, high quality information that they can translate into usable solutions to solve their most critical policy and practice issues.

The APSAC Center for Child Policy will help professionals working in all child maltreatment-related fields to access, translate, and to implement the best available research into effective practice.

The Young American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (YAPSAC) is the division of APSAC designed to serve students and young professionals to ensure that the next generation of leaders in the field of child maltreatment have access to the multi-disciplinary information, resources, and network  that APSAC offers.