Dr. Paul Keys, dean of the College of Health and Human Services, and Dr. Michael Brown, associate dean and director of the Southeast Police Academy, both at Southeast Missouri State University, announced that the Missouri Task Force on Children's Justice and the Missouri Division of Family Services have awarded a $50,000 contract to the College.

Funding from the contract will help to develop a statewide curriculum and to conduct statewide multidisciplinary child sexual abuse training for professionals working with children at the local level in Missouri. The comprehensive training program is a response to severe incidents of child abuse reported in the past several years in Missouri. The problem has primarily been highlighted in Kansas City and St. Louis, but is a critical, statewide issue in a number of areas in the state.

Training and technical assistance by this project will help develop the capacity of local child advocacy teams to effectively work together in addressing the problem. Keys said that state-level training and technical assistance is a priority of the College's Strategic Plan.