The keynote address of the 13th annual Arkansas Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect will be given by the mother of Morgan Nick, one of the most well-known missing person’s cases in Arkansas history.

Colleen Nick’s daughter, Morgan, was kidnapped in June 1995 from a baseball game in Alma, Arkansas, and never found. Nick’s keynote address, “Morgan’s Hope,” will be delivered at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 30, at Embassy Suites of Little Rock.

Nick will give a first-hand account of how family members cope with the pain and anguish of the search for an abducted child and their experiences with law enforcement, advocates, and prosecutors.

The conference, led by MidSOUTH, a community service unit of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Social Work, will run from Aug. 30 to Sept. 1 at Embassy Suites, 11301 Financial Centre Parkway.

Presenters at the conference will provide current information on prevention, investigation, casework, intervention, and support related to working with children and families affected by abuse and neglect.

The keynote speaker is the founder of the Morgan Nick Foundation, which assists thousands of families in crisis by providing intervention, assistance, and reunification to children and their families.

Nick is a nationally recognized spokeswoman and advocate for missing children. She was instrumental in Arkansas’ adoption of the Morgan Nick AMBER Alert system. Nick travels the nation educating law enforcement about missing and exploited children.

She is a co-creator of Team H.O.P.E., a support program at the National Center for Miss­ing & Exploited Children that serves families of the missing. Nick also is a senior team coordinator, supervising numerous volunteers and providing immediate and ongoing support to families in 12 states.

How to end child abuse

In addition to the keynote, Victor Vieth, founder and senior director of the Gundersen National Child Protection Training Center, will deliver a general session, “Unto the Third Generation: A Call to End Child Abuse in Three Generations,” at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 31.

In this session, participants will learn about the five obstacles that prevent people from ending child abuse and the sweeping changes taking place in the child protection system that will significantly reduce child abuse over the course of the next three generations.

Melissa Snow, child sex trafficking program specialist for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, will present two sessions on child sex trafficking Aug. 31. These sessions will help attendees learn how to identify and respond to youth who are being commercially sexually exploited and learn about resources and support available through the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Nearly 500 professionals are expected to attend the conference, featuring 33 workshop sessions. Participants can earn up to 15 hours of continuing education credits.

Session topics include the impact of addiction on families, nurturing parenting programs, corporal punishment and religious beliefs, child homicide investigations, the ethics of testifying in court, and bullying.

The Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the Arkansas Commission on Child Abuse, Rape, and Domestic Violence, and the Arkansas Department of Human Services Division of Children and Family Services are contributing partners of the conference.

For more information and to register, contact conference coordinator Robin Wilson at 501.296.1920 or visit www.midsouth.ualr.edu.