Joel S. Milner, director of the Center for the Study of Family Violence and Sexual Assault at Northern Illinois University, will give two presentations at Cornell University Tuesday, March 16, on better identification of children who are at risk for physical abuse and have risk factors of potential offenders. A morning session is intended for child protective and mental health professionals, and an afternoon session is for faculty and students.

Milner's morning talk, "Child Physical Abuse Risk Assessment: The Child Abuse Potential (CAP) Inventory," will focus primarily on explaining how to use the CAP Inventory index to assess children's risk for physical abuse and the index's applications and limitations. The talk will be 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Statler Hotel Amphitheater.

The afternoon presentation, "Child Physical Abuse Risk Factors: A Review of Offender Characteristics," will focus on studies of offender characteristics. It will be from 2:30 to 4 p.m. in the Martha Van Rensselaer Hall Faculty Commons.

Milner, a professor of psychology, is the author or co-author of more than 140 articles, chapters and books, primarily on topics concerning child physical abuse and family violence. His most recent research efforts have focused on the description and assessment of child physical and sexual abusers and on the testing of a social information processing model of child physical abuse.

The seminars are part of the Cornell Family Life Development Center's silver anniversary. The talks are free and open to the public; however, the sponsors request registration by calling (607) 255-7794 or by faxing to (607) 255-4837. Attendance is limited.