The Board of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC) is pleased to announce that at its June meeting, the Rev. Dr. Darrell Armstrong was elected the new President of the Board of Directors. His two-year tenure will run from June 2024 to June 2026.

The Rev. Dr. Armstrong’s service as Board President is historic for the organization because he is the first ordained clergy person, and the first Black male, to serve the distinguished society of child and family serving professionals.

Rev. Armstrong is in his 24th year of service as the pastor of the historic Shiloh Baptist Church in Trenton, NJ, the oldest Black Baptist congregation in the state’s capital. Shiloh is a thriving multicultural, multi-racial, and multigenerational community of faith, which under Armstrong’s leadership became the first house of worship in the US to officially declare itself a “No Hit Zone.”

His policy training at Stanford University (BA in Public Policy), theological training at Princeton Theological Seminary (M.Div.), and therapeutic/clinical training at The College of New Jersey (Ed.S. in marriage & family therapy) have uniquely prepared him to be a respected voice in the national and international child welfare and family strengthening communities. He is a certified trauma professional and credentialed master-trainer in the National Partnership for Community Leadership’s Fatherhood/Responsible Male Involvement. He is also a founding member of the Police Chaplaincy Units in both the Trenton and Ewing Police Departments, where he focuses on connecting clergy to multidisciplinary teams through their local child advocacy centers.

From 2006 to 2009, he served as Director, Assistant Commissioner, and Director of the Division of Prevention and Community Partnerships in the NJ Department of Children and Families. There, he oversaw a $100M budget of primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention funding and was responsible for co-writing New Jersey’s first statewide “Prevention Plan.”

In 2016, he was appointed the Chief Administrative Officer to the United Nations for the Baptist World Alliance where he advocated for Human Rights and espoused Family Strengthening policies and practices on a global level.

He is founder of F-A-A-I-T-H (Faithleaders Against Abuse In The Home), a new global non- governmental organization (NGO) working to help houses of worship around the globe become trauma-informed/responsive, resilience-minded, strengths-based, family-oriented, centers of hope and mindful faithfulness.

His service to APSAC includes, but not limited to, being a 2017 founding member of the National Initiative to End Corporal Punishment, a keynote speaker at the 2018 annual APSAC Colloquium, and an active member of various committees, including Co-Chair of the Faith Committee and Chair of the Development Committee.

President Emerita, Stacie LeBlanc, shared “I am thrilled that the Rev. Dr. Darrell Armstrong has been elected Board President, marking a historic milestone. His leadership and dedication to child advocacy are invaluable, especially given that he is a survivor of the Los Angeles child welfare system. His vision is essential as APSAC supports professionals and faith leaders dedicated to protecting children and families.”

As a multidisciplinary group of professionals, APSAC achieves its mission in a number of ways, most notably through expert training and educational activities, policy leadership and collaboration, and consultation that emphasize theoretically sound, evidence-based principles. APSAC envisions a world where all at-risk and maltreated children and their families have access to the highest level of professional commitment and service.

About the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children

Founded in 1986, APSAC is a nonprofit, national organization committed to meeting the needs of professionals engaged in all aspects of services for maltreated children and their families. Especially important to APSAC is the dissemination of trauma-informed, state-of-the-art practice in all professional disciplines related to child abuse and neglect. APSASC’s mission is to improve society’s response to the abuse and neglect of its children.