Speaker Bios
Victor Vieth, J.D., serves as the executive director of the National Child Protection Training Center (NCPTC), a state-of-the-art training complex located on the campus of Winona State University (WSU).
NCPTC includes five moot court rooms, four forensic interview rooms and a “mock house” in which to conduct simulated child abuse investigations. NCPTC staff provides intensive instruction for undergraduate students and current professionals in the field on how to better recognize, react and respond to children who are being abused. The Center trains approximately 15,000 child protection professionals each year.
Vieth has trained thousands of child-protection professionals from all 50 states, two U.S. territories and 17 countries on numerous topics pertaining to child abuse investigations, prosecutions and prevention. He gained national recognition for his work in addressing child abuse in small communities as a prosecutor in rural Minnesota. He has been named to the President’s Honor Roll of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, and the Young Lawyers Division of the American Bar Association named him one of the “21 Young Lawyers Leading us Into the 21st Century.”
Vieth has been instrumental in implementing 22 state and international forensic interview training programs and dozens of undergraduate and graduate programs on child maltreatment. Vieth has published countless articles related to the investigation, prosecution and prevention of child abuse and neglect. He is author of Unto the Third Generation, a bold initiative that outlines the necessary steps we must all take to eliminate child abuse in America in three generations.
Vieth graduated magna cum laude from WSU and earned his Juris Doctor from Hamline University School of Law (HUSL). While studying at HUSL, he received the American Jurisprudence award for achievement in the study of Constitutional law and served as editor-in chief of the Law Review.
For more information about the National Child Protection Training Center (NCPTC), visit www.ncptc.org.
Sherry Hamby, Ph.D., is a research professor of Psychology at Sewanee, the University of the South. She teaches Psychology of Gender and Psychology of Violence and supervises student research on violence and victimization.
Hamby’s scholarship focuses on the methodological and measurement challenges of violence research and cross-cultural issues in measuring and intervening for violence. She is part of the team that conducts the National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence, which is the U.S. Department of Justice's primary surveillance mechanism for youth victimization and the source of the most up-to-date and comprehensive statistics on the co-occurrence among different forms of youth violence.
Hamby is the editor for a new journal, Psychology of Violence, published by the American Psychological Association. She is also the author or co-author of more than 75 publications on family violence and youth victimization, including The Conflict Tactics Scales Handbook and Sortir Ensemble et Se Respecter, the first Swiss dating violence prevention program. With Mary Beth Skupien, she conducted the first reservation-based study of intimate partner violence among American Indians. Her most recent book, authored with John Grych, is The Web of Violence: Exploring Connections among Different Forms of Interpersonal Violence and Abuse (Springer, 2013).
A licensed clinical psychologist, Hamby has received awards from the National Register for Health Service Providers in Psychology and the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children.
To learn more about Sherry Hamby, Ph.D., click here.
Richard Gelles, Ph.D., holds The Joanne and Raymond Welsh Chair of Child Welfare and Family Violence in the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the director for the Center for Research on Youth & Social Policy and co-director of the Field Center for Children's Policy Practice & Research.
Gelles is an internationally known expert in domestic violence and child welfare. He was influential in the passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997.
Gelles is the author of the highly influential book, The Violent Home, which was the first systematic investigation to provide empirical data on domestic violence. His more recent books, The Book of David: How Preserving Families Can Cost Children's Lives and Intimate Violence in Families and Intimate Violence in Families (third edition), have also made a significant impact in the study of child welfare and family violence. He is the author of 24 books and more than 100 articles, chapters and papers.
Most recently, Gelles co-authored Current Controversies on Family Violence (2005) with M. Cavanaugh and D. Loseke. He is currently in the process of co-authoring another text, Intimate Violence and Abuse in Families.
To learn more about Richard Gelles, Ph.D., click here.
Anna Salter, Ph.D., received her Ph.D., in Clinical Psychology and Public Practice from Harvard University and obtained a masters degree in Child Study from Tufts. She was a Teaching Fellow at both universities.
Salter has lived in Madison, Wisc., since 1996 and consults half time to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. In addition, she lectures and consults on sex offenders and victims throughout the United States and abroad. She has keynoted conferences on sexual abuse in Australia, New Zealand, Scotland and England. In all, she has conducted trainings in 50 states and 10 countries. Salter also evaluates sex offenders for civil commitment proceedings and other purposes. She testifies as an expert witness in sexual abuse civil and criminal cases.
Before moving to Madison, Salter was on the faculty of Dartmouth Medical School in Lebanon, N.H., in the Departments of Psychiatry and Maternal and Child Health. While there, she was director of Psycho-social Training for the Pediatric Residency Program, director of Child Psychiatry Consultation to the Pediatric Ward, co-director of the Parenting Clinic, assistant director of the Children-at-Risk Program and director of the Parents in Distress Program.
Salter is the 1997 winner of the Significant Achievement Award from the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, and she also won the Saul Blatman Teaching Award in the Department of Pediatrics and Maternal and Child Health. She is the author of several nonfiction books, as well as fiction novels.
Scott Neely
Scott Neely serves as Pastoral Executive at First Presbyterian Church in Spartanburg, SC, administering the operations and missions of the church. He guides the congregation’s local and international service work and benevolences. Scott teaches at USC-Upstate as an Instructor of Religion. Scott’s wife, Betsy Claire Neely, serves as the Clinical Counselor at Converse College. They have two children, Ben (4) and Anne (2).