Chris Greeley, M.D.
Greeley named to abuse prevention board
Chris Greeley, M.D., assistant professor of Pediatrics, has been invited to serve on the Prevent Child Abuse America Board of Directors, a national group that promotes support for child abuse prevention through education and legislation.
Greeley, a pediatrician at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt who has had specialized training to assess signs of abuse, has been involved in child abuse prevention on a local and regional scale for years.
“It's a good time to participate in a national group that will bring both the state of Tennessee and Children's Hospital a level of prominence and will keep us on the cutting edge in prevention,” Greeley said. “A great advantage of serving on the board for Prevent Child Abuse America is that we'll get to see what other states are doing with pilot programs for prevention and Tennessee can participate in pilot projects.”
Greeley has been on the board for Prevent Child Abuse of Tennessee for two years. That group nominated him to serve on the national board. Currently, he is also serving on the Children's Justice Task Force, a federally mandated group that meets quarterly in Tennessee and has oversight of basic children's justice issues.
Greeley has also served on the selected committee on child and youth Child Preventive Services (CPS) reform subcommittee. There he helped to re-write the laws governing how child abuse must be reported, and expanded the law allowing the Department of Children's Services (DCS) to act on requests to approach a “family in need” with aid and access to programs that might prevent child abuse and neglect.
“This national appointment dovetails nicely with our February meeting of stakeholders across Tennessee who will meet and begin a plan for coordinated statewide child abuse prevention,” Greeley said. “While the services are out there, we are fairly fragmented in Tennessee. This is an opportune time to collaborate and pull together to become one of the top states in the nation for child abuse prevention.”