Register Today for our 20th Annual Spring Conference!

Challenges and Solutions in Implementing Evidence-Based Interventions in the Real World

featuring plenary speakers
Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda, PhD
Laurie Miller Brotman, PhD

Friday, May 6, 2016
8am-3:15pm, The Conference Center, NYC 

Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda, PhD
The Importance of the Home Learning
Environment for Infants and Toddlers:
From Research Findings to Evidence-based Practice

Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda, PhD, Professor of Developmental Psychology at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and Director of the Center for Research on Culture, Development and Education.

This talk will highlight the importance of the home language environment for infant and toddler language, cognitive, and social-emotional development, and evidence-based practices to support parents’ interactions with infants and toddlers. I begin overviewing why it is important for infants and toddlers to develop effective communicative skills in vocabulary, grammar, pragmatics, and emergent literacy skills. I will then turn to research on the aspects of the home environment that promote these skills in children. Three broad categories of support will be showcased: (1) the quality of parent-child interactions, including parents’ contingent responsiveness to infants’ exploration and communication and use of gestural communication; (2) parents’ structuring of learning activities (e.g., storytelling, bookreading, mealtime conversations); and (3) parents’ provisioning of learning materials for children’s exploration and learning (e.g., books, objects for play). Research findings will be based on several longitudinal studies of children from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds (European American, African American, Dominican immigrants, and Mexican immigrants), many of whom are dual language learners. Discussion will then turn to the best ways to support parents in their efforts to create positive learning environments for children, as well as the challenges practitioners face when working with parents. Audience discussion will be encouraged so that effective strategies might be shared among participants.

Dr.  Tamis-LeMonda’s research examines infants’ developing language, play, cognition, motor skills, and social understanding across the first four years of life, with a focus on reciprocal associations among emerging skills. Of special interest are the social and cultural contexts of early skill development, especially the ways in which mothers’ and fathers’ interactions with children ages 0 to 3 years shape children’s developmental trajectories in different populations within the U.S. and internationally. She uses multiple methods in her research (naturalistic, observational, experimental, surveys, qualitative interviews, direct child assessments) to investigate how infants’ early social experiences (especially with parents) facilitates language learning and development. Her research has been funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Development, National Institute of Mental Health, the National Science Foundation, Administration for Children and Families, the Ford Foundation, and the Robinhood Foundation.  She has over 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals and books, and has co-edited the volumes Child Psychology: A Handbook of Contemporary Issues (editions 1, 2, and 3), Handbook of Father Involvement: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (editions 1 and 2), and The Development of Social Cognition and Communication. 

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Laurie Miller Brotman, PhD
Implementing Family-Centered Evidence-Based Early Childhood Interventions in New York City  

Laurie Miller Brotman, PhD, Bezos Family Foundation Professor of Early Childhood Development and Professor of Population Health and Psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine; Director of the Center for
Early Childhood Health and Development (CEHD) in the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Medical Center.   

Dr. Brotman will describe the process of developing, evaluating, implementing and continuously improving a family-centered evidence-based early childhood intervention. Dr. Brotman will provide an overview of ParentCorps, an enhancement to Pre-K programs in schools and community-based settings.  She will present findings from two randomized controlled trials including impact on home and classroom environments, child school readiness, academic achievement, mental health and physical health.  She will conclude by describing current efforts to support schools and centers to create safe, nurturing and predictable environments for children and families in NYC and a vision for supporting children’s health and development at the population-level in NYC and in other urban centers throughout the United States.

Dr. Brotman earned a BS in Human Development and Family Studies from Cornell University, and a PhD in Clinical Developmental Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She completed an NIMH post-doctoral research fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Columbia University and has been a tenured faculty member at NYU since 1998.  Dr. Brotman has dedicated her research career to promoting positive outcomes among vulnerable children and families. Current grants from the Institute of Education Sciences and the National Institutes of Health support longitudinal and experimental studies of Black and Latino, low-income families as their children make the critical transition to school.  Dr. Brotman is the developer of ParentCorps, a family-centered, school-based universal early childhood intervention that has been shown in rigorous trials to promote positive parenting, school readiness, academic achievement, mental health and physical health among low-income, minority children. In partnership with local and state leaders in education and health, Dr. Brotman and colleagues are working to scale ParentCorps as an enhancement to Universal Pre-Kindergarten programs to reduce achievement and opportunity gaps and health disparities for low-income children.  Dr. Brotman was awarded the Society for Prevention Research's Community, Culture, and Prevention Science Award (2009) and Cornell University College of Human Ecology’s Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award (2014).  Dr. Brotman was named to the YWCA Academy of Women Leaders (2009) and is currently an Ascend Fellow at the Aspen Institute (2015 - 2016).

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BREAKOUT SPEAKERS:
(Speaker bios will be in program journal)

Registrants will choose 3 breakouts in the registration section and will be assigned to one session of their choice (see registration form).

Erasma Monticciolo, MPA
Power of Two - A Tale of an Evidence Based Model in Brownsville, Brooklyn: Implementing a New Program by Incorporating the Community’s Perspective
We are witness to the growing push by funders for evidence-based programming that is supported by promising scientific research. As leaders we know that identifying and then implementing an evidence-based approach can have its challenges—skeptical families and reluctant community leaders—particularly as it relates to communities of color. By using the story of Power of Two, a nonprofit that provides a proven parenting program to families in Brownsville, Brooklyn, participants will learn about: best practices for local engagement, the importance of compassionate, results-driven leadership, recruiting and building self-motivated and sensitive team members, and responding to the inevitable hiccups along the way.

Bonnie Cohen, LCSW, Mary Castillejos, LCSW, MSEd and
Isabel Chau, LCSW, RPT
For the Benefit of Both:  A University and Community Based Organization Collaboration 
The Center for Early Childhood Health and Development at NYU Langone Medical Center has supported University Settlement Early Childhood Division and Butterflies in implementation of ParentCorps in three diverse EarlyLearn sites by providing professional development, including interactive training, and one to one coaching, materials and protocols for classroom Friends School and Parenting program groups. Parent groups have been conducted in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, with materials specifically co-created.  The multi-year implementation has proved beneficial to both in ensuring fidelity to the evidence based model while specifically and mindfully adapting to each unique setting.

Roberta Holder-Mosley, MSN, CNM, LNC, CLC
Providing NFP to New York City’s Diverse Vulnerable Families
The Nurse-Family Partnership home visiting program is based on 37+ years of evidence from three randomized controlled trials conducted with three very different populations. The premise of the
RCTs was to find out if the NFP model was effective for these different populations, and the results found this to be true. This talk will discuss those results and how they inform the provision of NFP service to NYC’s own diverse populations. What are the challenges faced by NYC NFP’s nurse home visitors in working with clients from all backgrounds? How does a client’s family background and
culture impact her beliefs and goals around things from breastfeeding to disciplining children to her own education and career options?

Rebecca Shahmoon-Shanok, LCSW, PhD, and
Quincy Adams, LMSW, MSEd
Serving Across Diverse Populations, Becoming Evidence-Based:  Stories from the Relationships for Growth & Learning Program
Recognizing the significance of working across racial-cultural differences, we will introduce the Tenets for Social Justice and briefly describe the conceptual roots of Relationships for Growth & Learning (RfGL) Services, Training, and Research. As with other programs for young, vulnerable children and their families, RfGL has dedicated itself over several decades to diverse children and parents. We view its core as anti-racist, interventional supports offered during the still vulnerable, but “easily” accessible, early years.   As RfGL enables 90%-98% of diverse parents to give consent for their child to be in “treatment”, the idea of how one reaches out is critical. This session will create space to reflect on how we understand what we do, what we actually do, and what we don’t.  In this mix, the benefits of peer play psychotherapy will be illustrated with case stories.  We’ll also touch on the research saga involved in inching toward the attainment of the “evidence-based model” designation for RfGL.  

Martha Edwards, PhD, Judy Grossman, DrPH, OTR, FAOTA and Carmen Rosa, LMSW
Parenting in a Multi-Cultural World
This presentation will focus on the implementation of Bright Beginnings and Personal Best, a two-generation integrated manualized intervention for parents with young children, implemented in community settings.  We will focus on understanding parenting from a multi-cultural perspective and what we've learned about how to understand and influence parenting beliefs and practices.  

Marilena Drakopoulou, MSED
Understanding and Embracing Cultural Diversity When Providing Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) to Young Children Diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorders
This presentation will explore working with culturally diverse families and their young children who
have been diagnosed with Autism. We will look at the overall challenges faced by service providers in these settings. Furthermore, we will examine how we can better individualize therapy in order to optimize service delivery. We will be sharing tips, strategies and techniques that will allow you to better deal with the challenges that arise when working with families of different backgrounds. 

LUNCH IS INCLUDED IN THE CONFERENCE FEE.

DAY OF REGISTRATIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED ON A FIRST COME, FIRST SERVE BASIS.

 DAY OF REGISTRANTS WILL BE CHARGED
AN ADDITIONAL $20 ON TOP OF REGISTRATION FEES.   

 Email us for more information about day of registrations.