Our Sponsors

Our sponsors have stepped forward with us to effect change to protect our children from abuse. The prevention of child maltreatment is challenging. That is, partnerships with community leaders and effective strategic collaboration are essential in order to protect our children from harm. We hold our sponsors in high esteem and sincerely appreciate their contributions.

Board of Directors

Louis Tayon
President
City of Chesapeake Community Leader

Gail Heath Davidson
Immediate Past President
VDSS Eastern Regional Office-CPS Consultant

Melynda Ciccotti
Secretary/Executive Director
Champions For Children: Prevent Child Abuse HR

Betty Wade Coyle
Advocacy Chair
Director Emeritus,
Champions For Children: Prevent Child Abuse HR

Larry Grossman
Owner
Community Solutions

Dr. Lucien Lombardo
Professor Emeritus
Old Dominion University

Dr. Nancy Welch
Director
Chesapeake Health Department

The Honorable Nancy Parr
Commonwealth’s Attorney, Chesapeake

Erinn Portnoy
Child Advocacy Center, CHKD

Navine Fortune
Child Development Director, Norfolk State University

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Melynda Ciccotti, Executive Director

Melynda Ciccotti has held the position of Executive Director since June 2015. Now, Ms. Ciccotti serves on the national committee to end corporal punishment and is engaged in a major effort to make Hampton Roads a No Hit Zone community. No Hit Zone is currently the major project of Champions for Children and now gaining many supporters in the both the corporate and community world. The project, through training and presentations, educates citizens and child advocacy professionals on the research supporting the ending of corporal punishment and caring and compassionate ways to end the hitting of children. Ms. Ciccotti actively engages with the state organization’s (Families Forward Virginia) Advocacy Committee and works with lawmakers on delivering best laws to protect children from ever being harmed.

Under Ms. Ciccotti’s leadership the organization has supplied, with a strong group of trained volunteers, a number of community child abuse prevention trainings for adults who care for children- daycare providers, faith-based preschools, public school and community nurses, and college students majoring in the human services field.  The most popular offering is the nationally touted child sexual abuse program Darkness to Light: Stewards of Children. Some of the other most requested trainings are on advocacy, mandated reporting and safe churches. A series of different positions all led her to where she is today. Just out of college she worked as a teacher and then spent 15-years as a School Psychologist. In these positions, she encountered many children with compromised day-to-day functioning because of the trauma caused by a multitude of unsafe and harmful environments. Most recently, Melynda worked as Deputy Director for a Hampton Roads issue-oriented business group that provides private sector leadership to the Virginia Beach community. The work of this group focused on information gathering and problem solving for complex regional issues.

A graduate of Meredith College, her training in Psychology, graduate training in School Psychology and Early Childhood Education are the underpinnings which guide her in her work to reduce child maltreatment in all its forms, making communities and the world a better place for everyone.