Vincent J. Felitti Distinguished Scholar Award

Robert W. Block, MD, is the current Past President of the American Academy of Pediatrics and Professor Emeritus and Daniel C. Plunket Chair, Department of Pediatrics, University of Oklahoma, Tulsa Campus. He is the chief child abuse examiner for the state of Oklahoma, serving on the Board of Child Abuse Examination and the state’s Child Death Review Board. Dr. Block helped develop the Tulsa Children’s Justice Center, a multidisciplinary child abuse evaluation center affiliated with the University of Oklahoma and the Child Abuse Network, Inc., a not-for-profit community agency that coordinates the center team.

Julian D. Ford, Ph.D., A.B.P.P. is a board certified clinical psychologist and tenured Professor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and School of Law where he is the Principal Investigator and Director of two Treatment and Services Adaptation Centers in the National Child Traumatic Stress Network: the Center for Trauma Recovery and Juvenile Justice and the Center for the Treatment of Developmental Trauma Disorders. Dr. Ford is the immediate past President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, and is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association He serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Trauma and Dissociation and European Journal of Psychotraumatology. Dr. Ford has published more than 250 articles and book chapters and is the author or editor of 10 books, including Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, 2nd Edition, Treating Complex Trauma: A Sequenced, Relationship-Based Approach and Treating Complex Traumatic Stress Disorders in Children and Adolescents: Scientific Foundations and Therapeutic Models. Dr. Ford is the Principal Investigator for the national Developmental Trauma Disorder Field trial research study, and  developed and has conducted randomized clinical trial and effectiveness studies with the Trauma Affect Regulation: Guide for Education and Therapy (TARGET©) model for youths and adults with developmental trauma histories and complex PTSD.

Dr.  McCaw was the Medical Director of the Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC) Family Violence Prevention Program from 2001 to 2019,  Brigid McCaw oversaw the implementation of a comprehensive, coordinated model for improving screening, identification, and services for intimate partner violence (IPV). This approach, which utilizes systems thinking, performance improvement, health information technology, and dissemination and implementation science was associated with a substantial and sustained increase in IPV identification in primary care, mental health and emergency services in KPNC[1]. The program has received national awards and recognition. Dr. McCaw also led the national Kaiser Permanente (KP) dissemination of family violence prevention services, an inter-regional effort of KP regions impacting 12 Million KP members in 8 states and the District of Columbia. She has conducted research and published on the health effects of IPV, including a 2019 New England Journal of Medicine review article on IPV[2].

Dr. McCaw’s leadership, teaching, and publications primarily focuses on three areas: 1) developing the healthcare systems response to family violence, 2) implementation of ACEs/trauma and resiliency informed care, and 3) addressing social and behavioral health determinants including abuse/violence. She is a member of the Practice Transformation Workgroup of the National Council for Behavioral Health that has developed and tested an organizational change package for advancing trauma-informed primary care[3]. She served on the SAMHSA  Expert group on General Adult Trauma Screening and Brief Response (GATSBR) in Primary Health Care Settings (2014-2018).  She participated in a national working group on trauma informed care, led by Dr. Edward Machtinger,  and the recent publication of a consensus-based, evidence-informed conceptual model and guidance for trauma-informed health care for adults[4]. Her research, in collaboration with the KPNC Division of Research, included feasibility of screening for ACES/resiliency in prenatal care[5], and in pediatric clinics (study currently underway).

She attended the University of California, Berkeley-San Francisco Joint Medical Program, receiving her MD and MS, and MPH (epidemiology) from UC Berkeley School of Public Health. She is Board Certified in Internal Medicine  (UC Davis residency) a Fellow of the American College of Physicians; Past Chair of the National Health Collaborative on Violence and Abuse; and a member of the Forum on Global Violence Prevention, National Academy of Medicine. 

[1]Transforming the Health Care Response to Intimate Partner Violence: Addressing “Wicked Problems”. (2016) Journal of the American Medical Association. 315(23):2517-2518. Young-Wolff K, Kotz K, McCaw B.

[2]Intimate Partner Violence. (2019) New England Journal of Medicine. 380(9):850-7. Miller E, McCaw B.

[3]Trauma-Informed Primary Care: Fostering Resilience and Recovery, National Council for Behavioral Health (expected release date Fall 2019)

[4]From Treatment to Healing:  Inquiry and Response to Recent and Past Trauma in Adult Health Care. (2018) Womens Health Issues. 29(2):97-102.Machtinger E, Davis K, Kimberg L, Khanna N, Cuca Y, Dawson-Rose C, Shumway M, Campbell J, Lewis-O’Connor A, Blake M, Blanch A, McCaw B.

[5]Feasibility and Acceptability of Screening for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) in Prenatal Care. (2018) Journal of Women’s Health. 27(7):903-911. Flanagan T, Alabaster A, McCaw B, Stoller N, Watson C, Young-Wolff, K.

Adverse Childhood Experiences and Mental and Behavioral Health Conditions during Pregnancy: The Role of Resilience. (2019) Journal of Women's Health. 28(4):452-461.Young-Wolff K, Alabaster A, McCaw B, Stoller N, Watson C, Sterling S, Ridout K, Flanagan.

David Chadwick, MD worked with Henry Kempe, MD as a medical student/intern in 1949 at UCSF.  He went on to join LA Children’s as a faculty pediatrician where he was recruited into looking at child abuse by Helen Boardman, MSW, the same social worker who served with Roland Summit, MD on the founding board of Parents Anonymous.  Dave left LA Children’s to become the first employed physician/pediatrician at San Diego Children’s Hospital and rose to become its Medical Director first Chief Medical Officer before leaving hospital administration to focus on founding its Center for Child Protection.  Dave built that Center and joined in founding the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children in 1986.  He served as APSAC’s second President and was integral to developing the multidisciplinary field addressing child abuse and neglect.  He served as the Chair of the AMA’s National Advisory Council on Family Violence and after his retirement from San Diego Children’s Hospital, worked half time for the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Utah and Primary Children’s Center for Safe and Health Families in Salt Lake City.  After leaving his position in Salt Lake City, Dave suffered a major stroke that left him with a deep left hemiparesis.   He then learned voice transcription and authored the Child Abuse Doctors. Within the last few years, Dave became disappointed with the commercialization of peer reviewed journals. He developed the Cooperative Scientific Knowledge Exchange (CSKE) whose mission is to develop a system for the dissemination of scientific knowledge about violence and abuse at the lowest possible cost, sharing copyrights with the authors.  CSKE is now a program of the AVA and will be producing an electronic periodical called Maltreatment.  The Center he founded at the San Diego Children’s Hospital, now Rady Children’s Hospital, is now named the Chadwick Center and has continued to sponsor one of the world’s foremost annual child and family maltreatment conferences each January for over 30 years running. 

A renowned physician and researcher, Dr. Vincent J. Felitti is one of the world’s foremost experts on childhood trauma. Leading the charge in research into how adverse childhood experiences affect adults, he is co-principal investigator of the internationally recognized Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, a long-term, in-depth, analysis of over 17,000 adults. Defying conventional belief, this study famously revealed a powerful relationship between our emotional experiences as children and our physical and mental health as adults. In fact, the ACE study shows that humans convert childhood traumatic emotional experiences into organic disease later in life. Revolutionary at its inception, Felitti’s groundbreaking research remains extremely relevant to today’s healthcare models.

Founder of the Department of Preventive Medicine for Kaiser Permanente, Felitti served as the chief of preventive medicine for over 25 years. Under Dr. Felitti's leadership, his department provided comprehensive medical evaluations to 1.1 million individuals, becoming the largest single-site medical evaluation facility in the western world. During this time, Felitti’s revolutionary health risk abatement programs incorporated weight loss, smoking cessation, stress management, and a wide range of cutting-edge efforts to reduce patient risk factors. Dr. Felitti is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, and a Fellow of The American College of Physicians. He is currently Senior Editor of The Permanente Journal and on the International Editorial Board of the Swiss medical journal, Trauma und Gewalt. Dr. Felitti has served on advisory committees of the Institute of Medicine, the American Psychiatric Association, the Committee of the Secretary of Health and Human Services for Healthy People 2020, and the Advisory Committee on Women’s Services at SAMHSA. A noted expert on the genetic disease hemochromatosis, as well as obesity, he educates audiences around the country on these two very common, deadly maladies.

An engaging speaker, Felitti has traveled the world speaking with audiences and various policy leaders about his research. A well versed medical expert, Felitti also uses his knowledge to speak out against domestic violence and other forms of childhood trauma. Drawing on his years of experience, he has become an important voice advocating for the wellbeing of children everywhere. While time may not heal all wounds, Felitti helps show audiences how we can understand these physical and mental traumas, and ultimately, prevent them.

Frank W. Putnam, MD is widely regarded as a preeminent researcher, clinician and teacher on the health effects of violence and abuse. He has been a national leader in assuring that children have safe, healthy and nurturing families where all children can achieve their full potential.

Frank is a Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. He was formerly a Professor of Pediatrics and Child Psychiatry at Children’s Hospital Medical Center, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Following completion of his residency in adult psychiatry at Yale University in 1979, Dr. Putnam joined the National Institute of Mental Health Intramural Research Program in Bethesda, Maryland, where he first encountered large numbers of adult patients who had been abused as children. This led him to complete a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry and to focus his research on the psychological, biological and social effects of child abuse.

In 1999, he became Director of the Mayerson Center for Safe and Healthy Children, which is dedicated to improving prevention, evaluation and treatment services for traumatized children and their families. The Center, which sees over 2000 children a year, has a strong research and training program focused on providing effective interventions for the complex, and often difficult, family situations associated with child abuse and neglect. Dr. Putnam is the author of over 160 scientific publications and 2 books on topics related to child abuse and neglect.

Jacquelyn Campbell is the Anna D. Wolf Chair and Professor, Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing with a joint appointment in the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Campbell has been conducting advocacy policy work and research in the area of domestic violence since 1980. Dr. Campbell has been the PI of 10 major NIH, NIJ or CDC research grants and published more than 150 articles and seven books on this subject. She is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine and the American Academy of Nursing and on the Boards of Directors of the Family Violence Prevention Fund and the House of Ruth Battered Women’s Shelter. She received the 2006 Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research Pathfinder Award.

Richard Krugman is the first Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs for the University of Colorado Denver. In this role, he supports the deans of the Schools of Dental Medicine, Pharmacy and Public Health, the College of Nursing and the Graduate School for the Health Sciences. He oversees all clinical programs of the university at its five affiliated hospitals; the Center on Aging, the Center of Bioethics and Humanities, the Colorado Area Health Education (AHEC) system and Risk Management also report to him. Dr. Krugman became Dean of the UC Denver School of Medicine in March 1992, after serving as acting dean for 20 months.

Dr. Krugman is a graduate of Princeton University and earned his medical degree at New York University School of Medicine. A board-certified pediatrician, he did his internship and residency in pediatrics at the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine. Dr. Krugman joined the UC Denver faculty in 1973.