Section Members at Work

Dr. Dolores Subia Bigfoot (University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Center on Child Abuse and Neglect) is helping a community mother (Meghan Thiel) make community presentations about the impact of child sexual abuse. Ms. Thiel has no previous experience making public presentations but just wanted to do something to prevent child abuse!

Joann Grayson, PhD from the Department of Psychology at James Madison University produces the Virginia Child Protection Newsletter. It is sponsored by the Virginia Department of Social Services through a federal grant. Each issue features a different child maltreatment and child welfare topic. The most recent issue concerns Developing Resilience and Strengthening Families. 

Diane Wach Miller is a Research Support Specialist at the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect (NDACAN) in the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research (BCTR) and a doctoral student in Human Development at Cornell University. Her current research project is a secondary analysis of the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN) dataset on identifying precursors to borderline personality disorder among maltreated youth.

Cindy Miller-Perrin has published a textbook about child maltreatment. The third edition will be released within a few months! The citation is: Miller-Perrin, C. L., and Perrin, R. D. (2012). Child maltreatment: An Introduction (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.

Mary Haskett's - Department of Psychology at NC State University - collaboration with her local shelter community to enhance services for homeless parents and children was recently highlighted on pages 8-9 of the publication of the Eastern U.S. Region of the Salvation Army. 

Sara Maltzman (Senior Staff Psychologist at the San Diego County HHSA Child Welfare Services ) provided a five-hour training for licensed therapists, CWS social workers, attorneys, CASAs and peer support youth entitled: Neurobiology of Trauma and Resilience: Implications for Assessment, Diagnosis, and Treatment.  It was offered on 2/10/12 and 4/7/12. The training provided the background science for understanding traumatized children/teens, particularly those served by the CWS system, and linked the science to evidence-supported treatment and current assessment and diagnostic issues. The goal was to promote stakeholders’ understanding of the science so that they can provide, and advocate for, research-supported therapeutic and community services.

David Finkelhor, PhD, of the Crimes against Research Center, at the University of New Hampshire, along with colleagues Heather Turner, PhD, and Sherry Hamby, PhD, are working on the National Survey of Children Exposed to Violence (NatSCEV). This is an effort, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, to improve the assessment of children for a broad range of threats to their safety, from parental abuse to school violence. The project is leading to new epidemiologic information about the scope of the problems and the children at greatest risk. The project has been a cornerstone of Attorney General Eric Holder’s Defending Childhood initiative. Toolkits are being prepared to help communities and agencies use the resources of the project to assess groups of children and to monitor trends.

For more information:

National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence (NatSCEV)
Exposure to Domestic Violence

Lisa Berlin, at the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University is conducting several research projects that bring attachment theory, research, and intervention to bear on public health initiatives for infants and toddlers, such as Early Head Start and home visiting services to prevent early abuse and neglect. In ongoing work she is examining (a) the effects of intensive home visiting on infant-mother attachment; (b) the extent to which mothers' own attachment security can moderate the effectiveness of intensive home visiting and Early Head Start services; (c) the efficacy of a short-term attachment intervention for promoting supportive parenting in substance-using mothers of infants.

Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD, a professor of Psychology at Glendale CommunityCollege (Arizona), published a book entitled “Will I Ever See You Again?Attachment Challenges for Foster Children: A Primer for the Adults in Their Lives” which provides case managers, judges, foster parents, GALs, CASAs,and other adults who move in and out of the lives of foster children, an introduction to the many factors that affect the foster child’s ability or inability to attach to others. “Will I Ever See You Again?” (originally published by Cengage Learning in 2008 and now available as an e-Book) reviews theories of attachment as they apply specifically to foster children, identifies factors in the foster care system that contribute to attachment problems in foster children, and offers suggestions for changes to improve the child’s chance to develop meaningful future relationships.  Elizabeth welcomes input into her research on attachment issues in traumatized children.  She can be reached at GCC North, (623) 845-4188 or on her cell phone, (623) 680-7607 .

Lauren Stokes, MA, is a graduate student at the University of Kansas working on an NIH research grant that is seeking to understand what helps children in the foster care system be resilient despite their past histories of abuse and neglect. The goal is to ultimately informing interventions for kids and families.

Lisa M. Jones, PhD, at the University of New Hampshire, Crimes Against Children Research Center is working on research project funded by the National Institute of Justice evaluating current approaches to youth Internet safety education.  The research will provide a critical analysis of prevention strategies targeting Internet victimization and an assessment of how well programs and curricula directed at this new area of concern for youth are incorporating elements of prevention that are known to be effective. The project will result in recommendations and tools for those developing and funding Internet safety programs as well as school and law enforcement educators. The research will be ongoing throughout 2011, with results available in 2012.

Barbara Bonner, PhD, at the Center on Child Abuse and Neglect at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and Amy Damashek, PhD at Western Michigan University are conducting research on factors related to child fatalities in the states of Oklahoma and Michigan.