Monica Applewhite

monica-applewhite

Monica Applewhite

Dr. Monica Applewhite, Ph.D., is a leading practitioner in the field of abuse prevention.  Throughout her undergraduate education, Monica worked in psychiatric hospitals and emergency shelters for children.  When she took her first college psychology class, Monica  spoke to her professor and asked, “but what if someone is depressed because they have a  really good reason to be?” His reply was that if that was the way she looked at the world, she should look into Social Work instead of Psychology because the field of Social Work is meant to address the person and the environment, not just the person.  Monica went on the receive Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work at TCU and then a Master’s of Science and Ph.D. in Clinical Social Work at the University of Texas Arlington.

From 1992 to 2007, Dr. Applewhite garnered a great deal of experience in both studying abuse and helping organizations prevent and respond to incidents or allegations of abuse. During this time, she worked with more 300 organizations to protect the children, youths, and vulnerable adults in their care.  These programs include foster care, adoption, hospitals, mentorship programs, amusement parks, schools, sporting programs, youth development, residential care, child protective services, family preservation services and much more.

In 2007, Dr. Applewhite began working independently as an LLC and formally synthesized her experience in organizations with the professional literature and historical documents dating back to the early 1900’s.  With this information, she can clearly define the development of standards of care for organizations to prevent and respond to the sexual abuse of children. She is able to provide clear answers to questions or whether an organization did or did not meet the standards of care for prevention, detection and response to abuse at a time in history, and whether an organization is meeting the standards of care today.

As the issue of abuse gains attention internationally, Dr. Applewhite’s is working on educational and policy development programs in Poland, Ireland, Indonesia, Italy, Central America, Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands in addition to the United States. Dr. Applewhite’s areas of expertise include screen and selection protocols, responding to survivors of abuse, female and juvenile sexual offenders, internal feedback systems, monitoring and supervision systems, policy development for the prevention of abuse, internal investigation protocols in organizations, risk management procedures for those with histories of sexual offending and current best practices to protect the vulnerable. She provides intensive, dynamic workshops geared towards recognizing and preventing abuse in organizations. Throughout her years of work, Dr. Applewhite has discovered how often a lack of positive relationships in a child’s or adult’s life plays a role in the conditions that were present  just prior to abuse occurring.  This site is intended to provide resources for building the positive relationships that serve to protect the vulnerable.