It is with enthusiasm that I endorse Victor Petreca, PhD, DNP, PMHNP, for the DAISY Nurse Leader Award, presented by the Academy of Forensic Nursing (AFN). Victor is the first nurse to run the Center for Police Training in Crisis Intervention (The Center), where he oversees initiatives to enhance behavioral health crisis interventions for police officers and other members of jail diversion programs, such as co-response clinicians. The Center, established by the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health under Chapter 208 of the Acts of 2018, is a source and clearinghouse for cost-effective, evidence-based mental health and crisis intervention training for law enforcement and public safety personnel across the Commonwealth. The Center's work promotes the decriminalization of mental illness, improves crisis responses, and involves multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) of law enforcement officers, mental health professionals, healthcare providers, and other stakeholders. Through the Center, Victor leads research initiatives focused on jail diversion and risk/threat assessment, aligning with and promoting the DMH Center's goals to improve mental health crisis interventions. His research encompasses evaluating the effectiveness of these programs and developing best practices for implementation. Additionally, Victor conducts research on victimization, which includes studying violent behavior, escalation of violence, and trauma response from both victim and perpetrator perspectives. Victor has worked in over ten correctional facilities, providing psychiatric care for individuals involved in state and federal offenses. He continues to practice actively and is a key member in the development of programming, supervision, and policy and procedure formulation to address the needs of this population. His extensive experience and leadership have significantly contributed to forensic nursing, and he consistently demonstrates the highest standards of clinical and research excellence. For these reasons and more, I wholeheartedly support Victor Petreca's nomination for the DAISY Nurse Leader Award. He is a forward-thinking and strategic leader who promotes the visibility and image of forensic nursing in the community and the profession. 

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This is a letter of strong support for the nomination of Victor Petreca, PhD, RN, DNP, PMHNP-BC, for the Academy of Forensic Nursing's first-ever DAISY Nurse Leader Award in Forensic Nursing. I have had the pleasure of knowing Dr. Petreca since May of 2022, when we began working together on a forensic research project examining missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG). He personifies the AFN's DAISY description of a Forensic Nursing Scholar as a dedicated professional who engages in advanced study, research, and education to contribute to the body of knowledge and practice in the field of forensic nursing. Here in the Northeast, Dr. Petreca is a well-known and respected forensic nurse clinician who is also a forensic psychiatric/mental health, correctional, and legal nurse consultant. As evidenced by the grant funding from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Dr. Petreca has taken his knowledge of the jail system, the inmates/patients served, correctional officers, and administrators to restructure services within that organization.

Using nursing science and forensic science, he has linked research with best practices to implement a stronger person-centered care delivery system that uses trauma-informed care when responding to people who have experienced trauma. As a collaborative forensic nurse researcher, Dr. Petreca has assembled impressive interprofessional teams of expert clinicians, faculty, and students from across different disciplines, highlighting his capacity to lead and mentor individuals at all levels. I personally have observed Dr. Petreca bringing teams together and gaining interdisciplinary commitment to the important forensic projects he champions. It is my belief that, as a forensic nurse leader, he will continue to break down barriers that exist among researchers, clinicians, policymakers, administrators, and educators to ensure optimal outcomes for victims of violence, trauma, and other vulnerable populations.

Dr. Petreca's mentorship, professional role modeling, collegial work ethic, and passion for forensics is infectious. For example, in May 2022, with the MMIWG forensic team, Dr. Petreca recruited three graduate/DNP students and eight undergraduate students from Boston College. By March 2024, of the six non-nurse undergraduate students, three from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences had applied to accelerated BSN programs, and two of the DNPs had been accepted into PhD nursing programs, and all want to focus on forensics as their clinical specialty. The MMIGW symposium at the 2023 Eastern Nurses Research Society (ENRS) annual scientific conference that integrated cases presented by interprofessional students with data from expert forensic clinicians was recognized as a model of how to do mentoring and presenting nursing science the right way. Dr. Petreca is sharing his forensic expertise with colleagues in professional groups such as the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, Sigma Theta Tau International, and as an executive board member of the Super Sleuths Club. This member-only interdisciplinary group includes forensic nurses, psychologists, pathologists, medical examiners, entomologists, crime scene investigators, DNA specialists, and FBI Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) agents. This multidisciplinary team collaborates on real cases, working closely with the Cold Case Foundation to establish new leads in criminal cases that have gone unsolved. The work integrates expertise from various fields, including forensic science and nursing science, to bring new perspectives and solutions to cold cases. As a pro bono evaluator and research consultant with the Cold Case Foundation, Dr. Petreca serves as a forensic nurse research leader and manages four interns. He works with law enforcement and retired FBI agents, helping to leverage their research to uncover new insights and advancements in cold case investigations. His active role involves coordinating with interdisciplinary teams, guiding research efforts, and providing expert analysis to support ongoing investigations.

Additionally, in the community, Dr. Petreca uses his experience as a person of color and immigrant to work on the Stoughton English Learner Parent Advisory Council (ELPAC), supporting the educational needs of students who speak English as a second language. In my role as a forensic nurse educator and Coordinator of Undergraduate Research at Villanova University, I am in a unique position to evaluate and now nominate Dr. Petreca. He is one of those rare individuals whose passion for nursing science, the forensic nurse role, research, and dedication to the forensic nursing profession motivates those around him. He is an expert forensic clinician and a developing forensic nurse scientist whose research innovations reach across disciplines and will contribute to nursing science as he moves his agenda forward. In my opinion, as a member of AFN who has read the description of the DAISY Award, there could be no better candidate than Victor Petreca for the first-ever AFN DAISY Nurse Leader Award in Forensic Nursing.

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I have known Dr. Patreca for seven years, as he joined Boston College as a clinical professor, simultaneously completed his PhD, and then transitioned to a research-focused faculty position. I have served as a mentor, both in his research and overall career development. From the beginning, Victor had a unique perspective in forensic nursing, informed by his clinical experience working with individuals who come in contact with law enforcement, whether in correctional facilities, immigration detention centers, or community supervision. He identified gaps and advocated for the fair and equitable care of individuals, regardless of legal status. Victor was an instrumental part in forming relationships with stakeholders at the federal level to establish pathways that facilitate access to psychiatric care for individuals once they are released from prison in five states. He has implemented protocols and trained providers and nurses in several correctional facilities, including four county jails in different states that lacked regular mental health care access for incarcerated individuals prior to their partnership with CPS and Victor's leadership. Victor has concurrently developed his research in forensics nursing. In addition to receiving grants to study femicide by strangulation and male sexual abuse, he has secured funding with the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health (DMH) to develop knowledge and strategies pertaining to how police respond to behavioral crisis calls. The impact of this work has tremendous potential, especially when it comes to supporting communities of color and those who are disproportionally represented in jails, prisons, and the criminal system at large. Particularly considering the current political climate, in which issues such as police brutality towards minorities, the mentally ill, and other vulnerable groups have gained media attention, this work presents great promise for developing and optimizing alternatives that are safe for all parties involved. Since being funded, Victor has managed to restructure the entire state's jail diversion data collection system and database, which will allow for his continued action research. The outcomes of his work have been actively implemented in practice, impacting the training of clinical staff who ride along with police officers to address crisis calls. It is noteworthy that the state funding mechanism supporting his work was originally designed with other disciplines in mind, such as social work and criminology, but based on his strong multi-year proposal and recognized expertise in forensic psychiatric nursing, he was selected as the primary investigator for this effort. He holds the unique distinction of being the only funded researcher for the Jail Diversion Program at the DMH. This is the type of work that has the potential to impact how police address behavioral crises nationwide. It is also noteworthy that Victor plans to develop a curriculum for advanced practice psychiatric nurses to join police officers in ride-along calls for behavioral crises. Such a program would clearly elevate psychiatric nursing's visibility in the mental health field.

Victor receives strong evaluations in his teaching. He presents his research at national and international conferences, and he shows leadership in professional groups such as co-director of the Super Sleuths group. He is a member of the Cold Case Foundation based in Utah and of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Fetal Abduction project. He has presented his work on missing and murdered Native American Indigenous females at the CSON Professional Development Program. His current research is studying hospital staff's reaction to an unannounced active shooter drill. Victor is a strong advocate for forensic nursing. He understands nuanced aspects of forensic nursing, psychiatric-mental health, and the overlap between the criminal justice system and clinical practice. His work is clinically driven, innovative, bold, and solidly focused on the advancement of practice and research. I fully endorse Victor Petreca's application for the 2024 DAISY Nurse Leader Award.