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Center on Children & Families presents Dr. Gary Melton Nov. 24

(Photo courtsey of Clemson University Institute of Family and Neighborhood Life)

The Center on Children & Families presents Dr. Gary Melton on "What's Wrong with U.S. Child Protection Policy, and How Might It Be Fixed?" on Nov. 24, at noon in the Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom (HOL 180).

Gary B. Melton is director of the Institute of Family and Neighborhood Life and professor of psychology at Clemson University. A Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA) and 10 of its divisions, Melton is a past president of the American Orthopsychiatric Association, the American Psychology-Law Society, the APA Division of Child, Youth, and Family Services, and Childwatch International, a global research network sponsored by the Norwegian government.

Among other public and professional service, Melton has served as a member of the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, the U.S. Attorney General’s Expert Panel on Youth Violence, the APA Working Group on Child Abuse and Neglect, the APA Committee on International Relations in Psychology, the American Bar Association (ABA) Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law, the ABA and APA working groups on the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Institute of Medicine committee on training of health professionals about family violence, the National Research Council panel on elder mistreatment, and the national and state boards of Parents Anonymous.

Melton has testified several times before the U.S. Congress, and he has served as a consultant to numerous state social service, mental health, legislative, and court-administrative agencies. As director of the Consortium on Children, Families, and the Law, a national network of policy research centers, he co-organized a long-standing Congressional briefing series. Prof. Melton's work has been cited by U.S. courts at all levels, and he was the principal architect of the new national child protection strategy proposed by the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect.

The author of approximately 300 publications, Prof. Melton has published or is currently writing or editing books on diverse topics of child and family policy and psychology, including child research; children’s law; pediatric AIDS; forensic mental health services; child advocacy; rural psychology; research ethics; children’s competence; the law’s effects on behavior; motivation in family relationships; use of social science research in legal reform; child mental health policy; child protection policy; and international developments in child and family policy. He has served on the editorial board of more than 25 journals and book series.

Melton has lectured, consulted, or conducted research in approximately 40 countries and territories abroad, and much of his work in recent years has focused on the application of international human rights law to child and family policy. He was a Fulbright professor at the Norwegian Center for Child Research.

Melton has held faculty appointments at the Universities of Hawaii, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Carolina, and Virginia and at Morehead (Kentucky) State University. He is currently a research fellow in the Centre for Psychology and Law at the University of the Free State in South Africa. (Biography courtesy of Clemson University Institute of Family and Neighborhood Life).