chgd

The Center for Human Growth and Development has a long history of studying children in diverse cultural, familial, and social contexts. The goal of our group, “Interventions in Clinical-Community Settings”, is to apply current cutting-edge science to craft interventions that are responsive to identified community needs. We seek to translate principles of developmental science and to make these interventions accessible to communities of practice. Our focus includes promotion of child wellbeing for both typically and atypically developing children.

We conceptualize intervention as incorporating multiple levels and contexts that can affect child development. Our work focuses on social systems that affect children (e.g., foster care; medical system; school system; legal system; military); child-relevant community settings (e.g., after-school programs; daycares; classroom-based programs); family-child relationships (e.g., family-based preventive interventions; parent-child relationship work); and the unique needs of specific populations of children (e.g., child therapy; behavioral and social communication interventions for autism). We focus on the science of developing, tailoring, implementing, and evaluating interventions in a range of settings, ages, and populations.

An important goal of our group is to foster connections with the community in order to assess child and family needs. We collaborate with community organizations, systems, and stakeholders to put our knowledge of developmental science to work and effectively meet these needs to enhance child and family well-being. At the Center for Human Growth and Development, our group seeks to strengthen community-university partnerships around translational research.