“It Takes a Team to Protect a Child – Multidisciplinary Team Intervention Strategies”

There are real challenges faced by CAC’s and the multidisciplinary teams that utilize them. This interactive workshop seeks to identify inherent obstacles to this process and educate attendees on multidisciplinary team best practice principles to attain a more functional MDT intervention. This interactive, demonstrative presentation will expose the most common challenges and provide solutions in a frank, yet humorous, way.

This is a skills-based workshop wherein participants will learn collaborative intervention and investigative techniques designed for multidisciplinary team members. Coordination, intervention, and the importance of collaboration will be stressed. The presentation will include a discussion of critical areas of interdisciplinary cooperation, such as multidisciplinary team response to initial outcry and disclosure.

C.E.U. application submitted.

“Sextortion”

Sextortion refers to the broad category of sexual exploitation in which abuse of power is the means of coercion and can be coupled with the threatened release of abusive images or information. Because the method of coercion is usually non-physical these cases are sometimes thought of as less egregious than cases with hands on offenses. The participants will learn about the dynamics of sextortion, the victims, the forensic interview, and special case considerations when a large number of victims are involved.

C.E.U. application submitted.

“The dark side of the web: Online child sexual abuse and its effect on children’s mental health”

Co-presented by Karyn C. Smarz, Ph.D.
RDTC Supervising Psychologist Newark Beth Israel Medical Center

In 2020, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received 21.7 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation made to their CyberTipline. As highlighted by the U.S. Department of Justice, this victimization can cause significant distress in the victims, leading to psychological problems such as anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder. This training will discuss the impact of online child sexual abuse on children’s mental health. The presentation will include a brief developmental review will detail why children today are susceptible to online to online victimization. Based on this, recommendations for best practices will be provided.

C.E.U. application submitted.

“Survivor Story”

The survivor story will offer insight into the world of child abuse from the perspective of a male child abuse survivor. He will take the audience through his childhood experiences with abuse and provide a firsthand look at how a male child deals with abuse.