⇐ Back to History & Annual Summaries

Completed Tasks

Educational Webcasts

There were five CHAMP webcasts this grant year:

1. October 16, 2024, Organizing for Change: Strengthening Child Abuse Medical Care in NYS, presented by Ann Botash, MD, Distinguished Teaching Professor, Pediatrics, SUNY Upstate Medical University.
2. December 13, 2024, The Essential Information about Children and Teens with Problematic Sexual Behavior, presented by Jimmy Widdifield, Jr., LPC, Project Director, National Children’s Advocacy Center *Co-sponsored with APSAC-NY and the NY Foundling.
3. January 15, 2025, Interdisciplinary Collaboration to Engage and Treat Child Victims of Sex Trafficking, presented by Adebimpe Adewusi, MD, FAAP.
4. February 12, 2025, Domestic Violence and Children: Impact and Protective Factors, presented by Lindsey Crusan-Muse, Director, St. Peter's Crime Victim Services, St. Peter’s Health Partners *Co-sponsored with APSAC-NY and the NY Foundling.
5. March 12, 2025, Peer Review and Quality Improvement, presented by Suzanne P. Starling, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Eastern Virginia Medical School at Old Dominion University.

Drs. Botash, Adewusi, and Starling are nationally renowned experts in child abuse pediatrics and general pediatrics. Jimmy Widdifield is a nationally renowned authority with NCA. Lindsey Crusan-Muse is a NYS specialist leading a division focused on crime prevention and response. All webcasts bring research-based information to the child abuse professionals of NYS and provide an opportunity for attendees to participate with an expert.

Webcast attendees identified themselves as being physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and registered nurses working in pediatrics, emergency medicine and family medicine, many with SANE/SART/SAFE designation, and social workers and non-medical members of multidisciplinary teams. There was a total of 1,366 registrants for the webcasts. Of those who registered, 295 were awarded Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits. Both the webcasts and CME credits (one credit per webcast) are free to participants.

Attendees evaluated all webcast presenters as excellent and the content as being clear and helpful. From the responses to the surveys at the end of the webcasts, attendees planned to make changes in their practice, including:

• I have a broader perspective on making referrals to the CAC
• Better understanding of the role of the CAC
• Connecting with state partners on resources
• Use of video for medical examinations
• Being more mindful of the updates to evaluation on child abuse
• Understanding normative versus problematic sexual behaviors
• Make sure we see children with sexual behavioral problems as a whole
• Check bias and remain unconditionally welcoming
• Ask more questions to screen for sex trafficking
• Work with caregivers to reinforce increased protective factors
• I know more resources to refer to for support
• Share back lessons learned with my multidisciplinary peer review team

Evaluating Child Sexual Abuse Course

The online course Evaluating Child Sexual Abuse (ECSA) continues to be an effective educational tool for pediatricians, emergency department physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and SANEs. This grant year 121 professionals registered for the course. By June 30, 81 had passed the 100-question test. Of those who passed the test, 17 applied for and received CME credit and 6 received MOC points. Although the course is free, there is nominal charge for the 12 CME credits.

The ECSA course was originally created to be the first step for New York State medical professionals to become CHAMP Network Members. Its use has expanded to being part of child abuse training for medical residents and fellows and self-preparation for certification examinations. Twenty-three trainees from St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center and SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY, including family medicine residents, pediatric residents and pediatric emergency medicine fellows completed ECSA as a part of their rotation in child abuse with the Child Abuse Referral and Evaluation (CARE) clinic this year.

From the launch of the course in September 2011 through June 2025, there have been 2,230 registrants. Of those, 1,119 have passed the test and 387 have applied for and received CME credit.

Other CHAMP Website Resources

This is the first full year that CHAMP has used new database software that tracks bots, hack attempts, and redirect issues to “clean up” stats and provide more accurate analytics. In 2024- 2025, CHAMPprogram.com drew over 117,500 visitors. In addition to viewing web pages, visitors made over 30,300 downloads. That total includes over 3,660 Practice Recommendations related to Triage, Skeletal Survey, Photographic Documentation and Writing an Impact Statement; and over 1,480 Guidelines related to Evaluation of Physical Abuse, Evaluation of Sexual Abuse, Trauma-Informed Care and Promoting Unbiased and Inclusive Care. Test Your Knowledge statistics are now tabulated as the case question and answer being a single unit. The 24 questions had over 3,300 visitors. The nine child trafficking cases had nearly 1,250 visitors.

The ChildAbuseMD.com website that posts the searchable webbook Child Abuse Evaluation & Treatment for Medical Providers had over 82,000 visitors.

Since ChildAbuseMD.com was launched in mid-2005 and CHAMPprogram.com was launched in mid-2007, there have been nearly 6.5 million visitors to the websites.

CHAMP Faculty, Associate Faculty and Network Members

CHAMP Faculty and Associate Faculty provide educational experiences for medical students, residents, fellows and medical professionals. CHAMP Faculty are Child Abuse Pediatricians. Associate Faculty are physicians, advanced practice nurses or physician assistants who have training and experience in providing child abuse evaluations and work with CHAMP Faculty as part of a child abuse team.

Board eligible child abuse pediatricians, Bavan Singh, MD, and Heather Edward, MD, joined Montefiore Medical Center, The University Hospital for Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and JE and ZB Butler Center for Children and Families. Dr. Edward completed a CAP fellowship at Brown University in Rhode Island and Dr. Singh completed a CAP fellowship at Eastern Virginia Medical School, Virginia. They will participate in weekly rounds as guests until the board certifying exam is next offered and they will officially become CHAMP faculty members.

To remain on the Active Network Member roster, members must attend at least three CHAMP educational webcasts annually. This grant year began with 18 Active Network Members. After completing the ECSA course and an observership, Lauren Meilhede, MD, became an Active Network Member, making 19 Active Network Members as of June 30, 2025. Twenty-one New York counties have one or more CHAMP Network Members. These counties are Albany, Broome, Cayuga, Dutchess, Fulton, Jefferson, Madison, Orange, Otsego, Putnam, Rockland, Saratoga, Schenectady, Schoharie, Schuyler, St. Lawrence, Sullivan, Tompkins, Warren, Washington and Westchester.

Other Educational Opportunities and Scholarly Activity

CHAMP education is an integral part of SUNY Upstate Medical University and the Maimonides Medical Center Child Abuse Pediatrics Fellowship programs. The educational webcasts, ECSA online course and weekly case conferences are part of the fellowship curriculum.

The CARE Program at Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, provided scheduled learning experiences and rotations for 3 medical students, 23 Pediatric and Family Medicine residents, 1 Pediatric Emergency Medicine fellow and 2 Child & Adolescent Psychiatry fellows. In addition, 9 CHAMP Faculty and their Associate Faculty provided educational experiences for pediatric residents at their sites.

Recommendation

Collaborative Education

Collaborations greatly add to the success of CHAMP’s educational webcasts. For the eighth year, CHAMP collaborated with the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children- New York (APSAC-NY) to present two webcasts. This year’s collaboration also included the NY Foundling, which sponsored and awarded 40 CEU credits to social workers and psychologists. This collaboration helps pay CME costs, which have increased, and expands the availability of speakers and the number of attendees.

Collaborations also enhance CHAMP’s ability to address the educational needs of NYS pediatric medical providers and Child Abuse Centers (CACs). The NYS Office of Children and Family Services continued a grant that has supported new educational features and updates to CHAMPprogram.com and updated and expanded the ChildAbuseMD website.