WINONA, Minnesota (WXOW) -- Victor Vieth has been awarded the 2012 Pro Humanitate Award for Child Advocacy, North America's premiere award for child advocacy.
In bestowing this honor, the North American Resource Center for Child Welfare said that Vieth exemplifies "intellectual integrity and moral courage" and has "demonstrated a commitment to empirically sound policy and practice, and the courage to challenge political and conventional barriers to improving child welfare services."
Vieth founded and directs the National Child Protection Training Center at Winona State University—the largest provider of training and technical assistance to child protection professionals in the United States. He has been instrumental in establishing child abuse forensic interview training programs in 20 states and also in the nations of Colombia and Japan. He has advocated for reforming the undergraduate and graduate training of future child protection professionals and has helped implement these reforms in dozens of colleges, universities, law schools and medical schools in 15 different states.
Vieth has trained child protection professionals from all 50 states and numerous countries. He is a prolific author whose writings have been cited by a number of appellate courts. He also authored "Unto the Third Generation," a peer reviewed article that sets forth a framework for significantly reducing, if not ending, child abuse within three generations.
Vieth was formally presented with the award at the annual conference of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children in Chicago.
