Adjuncts
Adjunct Professors
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Joe Del Russo, JD Adjunct Professor |
| E mail:Del Russo Hours: By appointment |
Biographical Sketch:Mr. Joseph A. Del Russo is an attorney and Chief Assistant Prosecutor with the Passaic County Prosecutor’s office. He supervises a team of attorneys, investigators, social workers and paralegals in the Prosecutor’s Special Victims Unit and Megan’s Law Unit. He is a graduate of Rutgers University School of Law. He was also a Board Member and Past?President of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children – New Jersey (APSACNJ). Mr. Del Russo presently is a Visiting Lecturer and a member of the adjunct faculty at the Montclair State University Graduate School’s Center for Child Advocacy. He teaches courses relating to prevention, identification and prosecution of child abuse cases. He also has served in a similar capacity as an adjunct professor in the Rutgers University Graduate School of Social Work.
Mr. Del Russo has helped develop and is Co-Director of the Finding Words—New Jersey Forensic Interview Training Project. Established in 2002 in collaboration with the National District Attorneys Association and Minnesota’s CornerHouse Child Abuse Evaluation and Training Center – the Project has trained scores of New Jersey child maltreatment professionals on forensic interviewing. Prosecutor Del Russo has served in the past as a law clerk in Family Court for the Honorable Sylvan G. Rothenberg, Judge of the Superior Court. He is a certified child interviewer through The American Prosecutor’s Research Institute. He was also part of a New Jersey Attorney General Subcommittee that developed the Megan’s Law Registrant Risk Assessment Scale to assist prosecutors in protecting the public from sex offenders. Additionally he participates on the Protection Subcommittee of the New Jersey Task Force on Abuse and Neglect. Prosecutor Del Russo also recently finished some preliminary research with Montclair State University colleagues Dr. Anthony V. D’ Urso and Dr. Jason Dickinson examining the process of disclosure in child sexual abuse cases where the perpetrator recorded the crimes. These preliminary findings entitled: Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome and The Process of Disclosure: Data From the Front Line were recently presented at the national conference for Finding Words in Atlantic City, New Jersey during August 2007. Mr. Del Russo has recently traveled to Hawaii to discuss the success of the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Child Advocacy Center at the Government?Based Children's Advocacy Center Summit in Honolulu. The Summit, sponsored by the Western Regional Child Advocacy Center, is developing a technical assistance manual for Child Advocacy Centers considering this model. The Summit is was held March 2008. Mr. Del Russo’s work has been acknowledged by his peers at the 2003 New Jersey Child Assault Prevention Awards (CAP) in Princeton, New Jersey and at the 2000 APSAC Colloquium in Chicago, Illinois where he was received as a member of the President’s Honor Roll of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. He has also published two articles involving legal issues in abuse and neglect and continues to advocate for children and adult survivors of abuse and neglect as Chief Assistant Prosecutor from his offices in Totowa, New Jersey. |
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Christopher Freid, JD
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| E mail: Freid Hours: By appointment |
Biographical Sketch: Christopher Freid serves as a Senior Assistant Prosecutor in the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office Special Victims Unit. He has been part of that office since 1999. He works closely with and advises the Unit’s investigative team on child physical and sexual abuse cases. Additionally, he prosecutes these cases in court before juries. Prior to his service in Passaic County, Mr. Freid was an Assistant Prosecutor in the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office where he was assigned to the Domestic Violence Unit. He is also an adjunct professor at Montclair State University’s Center for Child Advocacy and has held this position since 2005. Mr. Freid holds a Bachelor of Arts from Fordham University in the Bronx, New York and a Juris Doctorfrom Quinnipiac University School of Law in Hamden, Connecticut.
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Peter Herbst, MSW, LCSW
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E mail: Herbst Hours: By appointment |
Biographical Sketch: Peter Herbst, MSW, LCSW, currently serves as the executive director of the Hudson County Child Abuse Prevention Center (HCCAPC) located in Jersey City, NJ. He has held this position since 1989. HCCAPC is a private, non-profit agency with the mission to help prevent child abuse in Hudson County through parenting education, youth empowerment, professional training and community coordination and awareness. HCCAPC also operates the Hudson County Child Advocacy Center and the Kearny-Harrison-East Newark Family Success Center. Under his direction, the Center has become a leading member of the Hudson network of social service and government agencies which focus on children and families. |
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Dave Johnston, MA, CSW
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| E mail: Johnston Hours: By appointment |
Biographical Sketch: Mr. Johnston has been with the Division of Youth and Family Services since 1986, in various positions. Currently, he is the County Service Specialist for Morris and Sussex Counties. He has been involved in program and resource development for many years in Morris county, collaborating to create the CASA Supervised Visitation Program, as well as the Women's Anger Management Course at Hope House. e is currently an appointed member of Morris County's Youth Services Advisory, Municipal Alliance Steering, Human Services Advisory and Multidisciplinary Advisory Board Committees. He also Serves on the Sussex County Youth Advisory Committee and their Human Services Advisory Committee. Both his graduate and undergraduate degrees from Montclair State University, BA in English Education and MA in Counseling, Guidance, and Human Development with a concentration in Addiction Studies. He holds certifications as a Social Worker and Student Assistance Counselor. |