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3C Institute

Course Supports Child Exploitation Investigators

3C Institute is excited to collaborate with The Innocent Justice Foundation (TIJF) on a course designed to provide mental health support to law enforcement officers, forensic analysts, and judicial personnel investigating and prosecuting child exploitation and trafficking cases. The disturbing images and videos these individuals encounter daily as part of their work put them at risk of developing vicarious trauma, or trauma that results from hearing about or witnessing another person’s trauma.

TIJF seeks to enhance its already successful efforts to provide psycho-education, training, and support programs to both the individuals working directly with child sexual abuse and pornography cases, as well as their families and friends, who may not fully understand the impact of working in such an emotionally demanding field.

Through a partnership with the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force Commanders, as well as collaboration with mental health experts, TIJF developed the Supporting Heroes in Mental Health Foundational Training (SHIFT). SHIFT helps individuals who are at risk of or are already experiencing symptoms of vicarious trauma to recognize those symptoms and address them before they become severe or permanent. TIJF has been the training and technical assistance provider for officer wellness support and training through SHIFT since 2009.

Using its Dynamic e-Learning Platform (DeLP), 3C will partner with TIJF to develop a course that supplements TIJF’s in-person SHIFT workshops and can be used at any time by trauma-exposed individuals to “disrupt” the development of vicarious trauma symptoms, mitigate negative side effects of exposure to caustic material, and bolster resilience.

Supporting TIJF’s work and the critical efforts of the many individuals who seek to rescue exploited children and bring their abusers to justice provides 3C a unique opportunity to expand upon its mission of promoting the health and well-being of children.

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    DEB CHILDRESS, PHD

    Chief of Research and Learning Content

    BIOGRAPHY

    Dr. Childress obtained her PhD in psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to coming to 3C Institute, she served as a research associate and a postdoctoral fellow in the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill working on a longitudinal imaging study aimed at identifying the early markers of autism through behavioral and imaging methodologies. She has 19 years of autism research experience, during which she has examined the behavioral, personality, and cognitive characteristics of individuals with autism and their family members. Dr. Childress also has experience developing behavioral and parent report measurement tools, coordinating multi-site research studies, and collecting data from children and families. She has taught courses and seminars in general child development, autism, and cognitive development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

    Expertise

    • autism
    • early development
    • behavioral measurement
    • integrating behavioral and biological measurement

    Education

    • Postdoctoral fellowship, Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities (Institutional NRSA-NICHD), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    • PhD, developmental psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    • BS, psychology (minor in sociology), University of Iowa

    Selected Publications

    • Elison, J. T., Wolff, J. J., Heimer, D. C., Paterson, S. J., Gu, H., Hazlett, H. C., Styner, M, Gerig, G., & Piven, J. (in press). Frontolimbic neural circuitry at 6 months predicts individual differences in joint attention at 9 months. Developmental Science.
    • Wassink, T. H., Vieland, V. J., Sheffield, V. C., Bartlett, C. W., Goedken, R., Childress, D. & Piven, J. (2008). Posterior probability of linkage analysis of autism dataset identifies linkage to chromosome 16. Psychiatric Genetics,18(2),85-91.
    • Losh, M., Childress, D., Lam K. & Piven, J. (2008). Defining key features of the broad autism phenotype: A comparison across parents of multiple- and single-incidence autism families. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 147B(4):424-33.
    • Wassink, T. H., Piven, J., Vieland, V. J., Jenkins, L., Frantz R., Bartlett, C. W., Goedken, R., … Sheffield, V.C. (2005). Evaluation of the chromosome 2q37.3 gene CENTG2 as an autism susceptibility gene. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 136, 36-44.
    • Barrett, S., Beck, J., Bernier, R., Bisson, E., Braun, T., Casavant, T., Childress, D., … Vieland, V. (1999). An autosomal genomic screen for autism. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 88, 609-615. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1096-8628(19991215)88:63.0.CO;2-L
    • Piven, J., Palmer, P., Landa, R., Santangelo, S., Jacobi, D. & Childress, D. (1997). Personality and language characteristics in parents from multiple-incidence autism families. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 74, 398-411.
    • Piven, J., Palmer, P., Jacobi, D., Childress, D. & Arndt, S. (1997). Broader autism phenotype: Evidence from a family history study of multiple-incidence autism families. American Journal of Psychiatry, 154, 185-190.