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Educational Webcasts

There were six CHAMP webcasts this grant year:

1. October 15, 2025, hinking Deeply About AHT: What do you believe and how can we know that?, presented by Stephen C. Boos, MD, FAAP, Professor of Pediatrics, UMass Chan Medical School.
2. November 12, 2025, Affirming Care for Transgender and Gender Diverse Children and Adolescents, presented by Neal D. Hoffman, MD, Children’s Hospital at Montefiore. *Co- sponsored with APSAC-NY and the NY Foundling.
3. December 10, 2025, When Parents Say NO to Medical Treatment,, presented by Amy E. Caruso Brown, MD, Chair of Bioethics and Humanities, SUNY Upstate Medical University.
4. January 14, 2026, Reading Between the Lines: Narrative Medicine and the Necessity of Noticing, presented by Nancy Heavilin, MD, FAAP, Primary Care Pediatrician, Mosaic Community Health.
5. February 11, 2026, Pediatric Strangulation: Fact, Myth, and the Unknown, presented by Katherine Snyder, MD, MPH, FAAP, Dell Children’s Medical Center/Dell Medical School at the University of Texas, Austin.
6. March 11, 2026, Managing Secondary Traumatic Stress and Burnout, presented by Samantha Alvarez Benowitz, LCSW. *Co-sponsored with APSAC-NY and the NY Foundling.

Drs. Boos and Snyder are recognized nationally as experts in child abuse pediatrics and general pediatrics. Dr. Boos is the executive editor of The Quarterly, Child Abuse Medical Update and his research interest is in abusive head trauma. Dr. Snyder has a passion for policy, a research interest in pediatric strangulation and intrafamilial child torture, and has been an invited speaker at local, regional, and national conferences.

Drs. Caruso Brown and Heavilin are well-respected practicing pediatricians who shared their research in the fields of Ethics and Narrative Medicine, respectively. In addition to her pediatric hematology/oncology practice, Dr. Caruso-Brown is the Chair of Bioethics and Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University, and her scholarly work explores ethical, professional, and cultural issues in pediatric decision making. Dr. Heavilin holds a Certificate of Professional Achievement in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University and has become a consultant on this topic, while practicing as a primary care pediatrician at a federally qualified health center in Central Oregon.

Neal Hoffman, MD and Samantha Alvarez Benowitz, LCSW, each provided co-sponsored presentations supported by CHAMP, APSAC-NY, and NY Foundling. As a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Council on Adolescents and Young Adults, including the Section on LGBT Health & Wellness, Dr. Hoffman speaks frequently about caring for gender diverse youth. Samantha Alvarez Benowitz brings expertise on managing secondary trauma from her prior roles as Director of Clinical Services at The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NYSPCC) and as the Senior Director of Mental Health and Anti-Trafficking at Covenant House New York. All webcasts present research-based information to the child abuse medical professionals of NYS and allow attendees to learn from an expert.

Webcast attendees identified themselves as physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and registered nurses who collectively work in pediatrics, emergency medicine, and family medicine, many with SANE/SART/SAFE designation. Additional attendees include medical social workers and non-medical members of multidisciplinary teams. There was a total of 1,319 registrants for the webcasts. Of those who registered, 313 were awarded Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits. Both the webcasts and CME credits (one credit per webcast) are free to participants.

Attendees agreed or strongly agreed that the presentations provided information applicable to their daily practice, and the educational points were clearly articulated. According to survey responses collected at the end of the webcasts, attendees planned to make changes in their practice, including:

• Greater awareness of the importance of thorough history-taking and multidisciplinary collaboration
• Prioritize communication and relationship-building with families to address refusal before considering legal intervention
• I like how you ask, "what did you think was going to happen?" as opposed to my current practice of asking "what were you thinking during the strangulation?" most kids don't understand that question
• Remember to ask open-ended questions and if there is a need to introduce a yes or no question, it would be recommended to add "something else?" as part of the answering options
• We have to assess the situation when we are making the decision as to who we think is going to benefit when we are weighing the decisions in treating the child and there is a conflict
• Now I know normal exams are present in 99% of child sexual abuse cases
• Appreciating gender identity as just one aspect of identity developing in adolescence—using that information to assess the whole child and not getting sidetracked by gender identity in assessments
• Feeling more confident when providing witness testimony in the courtroom
• I will understand that connecting with patients is an important part of healing

Evaluating Child Sexual Abuse Course

The online course Evaluating Child Sexual Abuse (ECSA) continues to be an effective educational tool for physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and SANEs. This grant year, 52 professionals registered for the course. By June 30, 38 had passed the 100-question test. Of those who passed the test, 7 applied for and received CME credit and 3 received Maintenance of Certification (MOC) credit through the American Board of Pediatrics. 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. Twelve trainees from St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center and SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY, including family medicine residents, pediatric residents and fellows in the specialty areas of pediatric emergency medicine, pediatric hospital medicine and child & adolescent psychiatry completed ECSA as a part of their rotation in child abuse with the Child Abuse Referral and Evaluation (CARE) Program this year.

From the launch of the course in September 2011 through June 2026, there have been 2,282 registrants. Of those, 1,147 have passed the test and 394 have applied for and received CME credit.

Other CHAMP Website Resources

CHAMP continues to use database software that tracks bots, hack attempts, and redirect issues to “clean up” stats and provide more accurate analytics. In 2025-2026, CHAMPprogram.com drew over 328,300 visitors. In addition to viewing web pages, visitors downloaded over 75,000 files. That total includes over 8,260 Practice Recommendations related to Triage, Skeletal Survey, Photographic Documentation and Writing an Impact Statement; and over 3,100 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 3,100 visitors. The nine child trafficking cases had over 2,300 visitors.

The ChildAbuseMD.com website that posts the searchable webbook Child Abuse Evaluation & Treatment for Medical Providers had over 127,000 visitors.

Since ChildAbuseMD.com was launched in mid-2005 and CHAMPprogram.com was launched in mid-2007, there have been nearly 7.25 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 medical 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 have been practicing at Montefiore Medical Center, The University Hospital for Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and JE and ZB Butler Center for Children and Families since 2024. They have been active participants in CHAMP's weekly rounds as guests. Both passed the American Board of Pediatrics board certifying exam in Child Abuse Pediatrics the spring of 2026 and are eligible to become CHAMP faculty members.

Elizabeth Ray, MD completed her CAP Fellowship at Upstate University Medical Center in June 2026 and is a board eligible Child Abuse Pediatrician who has accepted a position at Albany Medical Center to develop their inpatient child abuse pediatrics consultation service She will be a guest with CHAMP until completing the next board certifying exam in the spring of 2028. Combined Pediatric Emergency Medicine and Child Abuse Pediatrics fellow from The Ohio State Medical School, Luke Hartman, MD, has completed the application process to become a member of the CHAMP faculty. Dr. Hartman is board-eligible and will take the board certifying exam in the spring of 2028. Dr. Hartman reached out to the CHAMP program for support as he establishes himself in his new role as a solo Child Abuse Pediatric provider at Stony Brook Children's Hospital in New York.

To remain on the Active Network Member roster, members must attend at least three CHAMP educational webcasts annually. This grant year began with 19 Active Network Members. After completing the ECSA course and an observership, Marianne Powers, NP and Megumi Takai- Seiffert, MD became Active Network Members, making 21 Active Network Members as of June 30, 2026.

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

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

The CARE Program at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse provided scheduled learning experiences and rotations for 29 Pediatric and Family Medicine residents, three Pediatric Emergency Medicine fellows, two Child & Adolescent Psychiatry fellows and one Pediatric Hospitalist fellow. During these experiences, these medical professionals are exposed to the resources available on the CHAMPprogram.com and ChildAbuseMD.com websites.

Recommendation

Collaborative Education

Collaborations greatly add to the success of CHAMP’s educational webcasts. For the ninth year, CHAMP collaborated with the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children- New York (APSAC-NY) to present two webcasts. Over the past two years, this collaboration also included the NY Foundling, which sponsored and awarded 58 CEU credits to social workers and psychologists. This collaboration helps pay CME costs, which have increased, and expands the breadth of speakers and the number of attendees.

Collaborations also enhance CHAMP’s ability to address the educational needs of New York State pediatric medical professionals and Child Advocacy Centers (CACs). This year, the national APSAC organization reached out to discuss opportunities to collaborate with the CHAMP program, and options are being explored. One of next year's webcasts will support a research project related to medical professional's opinions of corporal punishment, and this opportunity arose from our relationship with NY Foundling and another CHAMP Faculty member. We will continue to build relationships with other organizations that are committed to the welfare of children so that we can remain current in providing high-quality educational opportunities for our members.