James Garbarino to Present Keynote at CYFAR 2010

June Mead

4-H National Headquarters, National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), U.S. Department of Agriculture announces the annual Children Youth and Families at Risk (CYFAR) 2010 Conference May 4-7 at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis, San Francisco.

James Garbarino, will give the opening keynote, Protecting Adolescents from Bullying, Harassment and Emotional Violence at CYFAR 2010. Dr. Garbarino holds the Maude C. Clarke Chair in Humanistic Psychology and was founding Director of the Center for the Human Rights of Children at Loyola University Chicago. Previously he was Elizabeth Lee Vincent Professor of Human Development and Co-Director of the Family Life Development Center at Cornell University.

Dr. Garbarino’s keynote will focus on how the social system of the school plays a decisive role in the process of bullying, sexual harassment and emotional violence in the lives of teenagers. One core message is to avoid the temptations to see bullying as a personal problem and instead to always look for the workings of the school as a social system. This implies strategies for responding that include character education, better feedback from students, and more explicit demonstration of adult caring in the school.

The CYFAR Program integrates resources of the Land Grant University Cooperative Extension System to develop and deliver community-based educational programs that equip limited resource families and youth who are at risk for not meeting basic human needs, to lead positive, productive, contributing lives.   The CYFAR Conference provides a professional development experience for youth and family professionals who build and implement effective programs for at risk children and their families and the opportunity to learn and to share resources with colleagues and collaborators across the nation.

All keynote and the research presentations will be available for “web-streaming video” viewing through CYFERnet and the CYFAR 2010 Conference Proceedings.  These web-videos can be used as a springboard for continuing dialogue about the important challenges being addressed by those working with children, youth and families.

June P. Mead is the CYFAR 2010 Conference Program Coordinator and Steve Goggin is a member of the CYFAR 2010 Keynote and Research Committee.

For More Information
CYFAR 2010 website

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