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June Mead

Community Improvement Through Youth (CITY) Project’s Eco-Meal Challenge, piloted by the CITY Teen Leaders, was selected by Food, Nutrition & Policy Consultants in Washington, DC to be presented to the First Lady Michelle Obama in a collection spotlighting the nation’s most innovative nutrition education programs.  This information was shared with the First Lady as she prepared to unveil her campaign to confront childhood obesity.

The Eco-Meal Challenge was developed by Jamila Simon, M.S. while she was the Project Coordinator for the CITY Project, Cornell University Cooperative Extension, New York City and piloted by the CITY Project Teen Leaders, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Broome County in conjunction with One Seed at a Time: Alleviating Climate Change through Youth Community Action in the Garden Project.

Through the Eco-Meal Challenge, the CITY Teen Leaders learn how their decisions about grocery shopping and food preparation impact climate change (see photos).  They learn to calculate the "carbon footprint" of preparing community meals as they score points for decisions about such things as shopping at local Farmers' Markets (where food travels shorter distances), buying larger containers of food, making their own reusable bags and composting. The CITY Teen Leaders learn about the impact of climate change and explore how they can make a difference in their communities through sustainable gardening practices.                                            

One Seed at a Time was a collaboration between the CITY Project and Marcia Eames-Sheavly and Christine Hadekel, Cornell Garden-Based Learning Program, Department of Horticulture.  Vicki Giarratano is the CITY Project Director and Kelly Maybee is the CITY Project Coordinator, CCE Broome County.

The CITY Project is a recipient of the 4-H Families Count: Annie E. Casey Family Strengthening Award and is a 4-H National Headquarters Program of Distinction.

June P. Mead is the CITY Project Director and Program Evaluator.  The CITY Project is part of the Children, Youth and Families At-Risk (CYFAR) Program, Sustainable Community Projects (SCP).  It is supported by Smith Lever funds, National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), U.S. Department of Agriculture.

For Further Information
CITY Project website

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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

Human Development Outreach & Extension

Human Development Today e-News

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Most people are exposed to at least one and often multiple potentially traumatic events (PTEs) during the course of their life. Epidemiological research indicates that only a small subset of people react to such extreme events with enduring emotional difficulties. Yet, until recently, trauma theorists have understood PTEs from a purely psychopathological approach and assumed that responses to PTEs form a homogenous distribution of change across time. Trauma theorists have also assumed that the capacity to maintain stable healthy adjustment or resilience following PTEs was rare. In this talk Professor Bonanno reviews research and theory that argues for an individual differences approach based on the alternative assumption that responses to potential trauma are heterogeneous, and typically explained by multiple trajectories of outcome. Further, he defines resilience as distinct from the outcome pathway traditionally associated with recovery, and present evidence indicating that resilience is not rare, but rather often the most common response among adults exposed to adversity. He describes more recent approaches to modeling trauma outcome that use a relatively new data analytic framework, Latent Growth Mixture Modeling (LGMM), which incorporates the idea of outcome heterogeneity. He reviews several recent studies in which he used the LGMM approach to model change following PTEs. Finally, he considers variables that best inform resilient outcomes following exposure to PTEs.

Sponsored by Aging and Health faculty/HumanDevelopment and The Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center

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Dear Colleagues,

As Department Extension Leader, it is my pleasure to make a few special announcements in our Fall 2009 Human Development Newsletter:  First, I would like to welcome Karl Pillemer as the new Associate Dean of Extension.  Karl brings his significant experience in translational research and extension to lead the outreach efforts of the College.  We are looking forward to Karl's support as we build on our successful track record of integration of outreach, research, and undergraduate education.

Second, I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the tremendous expertise in research and scholarship represented by faculty in Human Development.  Our world class research and scholarship is evidenced by the growth in our external funding portfolio.  Featured in this issue are award announcements for highly competitive grants supporting innovative research and partnerships, with important real world applications in the areas of poverty and early brain development, cognitive impairment in aging, pain management in later life, adolescent risk taking and health, earth science education, and improving food choice in school cafeterias.  Congratulations to all of you who have contributed to these projects!

We also highlight in this issue the undergraduate extension internships sponsored by the College of Human Ecology.  Involving undergraduates in research and in the translation of such research fosters students' experiences in outreach and develops leadership competencies.  Summer funding enables students to participate in community-based experiences across New York, and to learn how critical thinking, data collection, and research translation and application can address human needs.  Ask one of the 14 students we have funded about the necessity for evidence-based practice, and you will be impressed by their vision and commitment to improving human welfare.  As always, I remain inspired by the staff, students, community partners, and administrators who make Cornell's special brand of research-community partnerships possible.

Happy Holiday wishes!

Valerie Reyna

Human Development Outreach & Extension

Human Development Today e-News

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The Cornell Institute for Translational Research on Aging (CITRA) is pleased to announce continued funding of its Roybal Center. The new center will be called the Translational Research Institute on Pain in Later Life (TRIPLL), and will focus on improving the prevention and management of pain in later life. Cornell University and its medical college are joined by new partners including Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the Hospital for Special Surgery and the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. Dr. Cary Reid will serve as Director and Dr. Karl Pillemer will serve as co-principal investigator. Dr Elaine Wethington, also co-principal investigator, will oversee the Pilot Study core component of the grant.

The focus on pain management in later life is particularly appropriate given that as many as 30 to 40 percent of older adults experience persistent pain, which can be a costly and frequently disabling disorder in later life. Effective solutions to the problem of later-life pain require moving basic behavioral and social science and medical research findings more rapidly into programs, practices, and policies targeting older adults. This Center will continue to take advantage of its research-ready senior center and agency network, based in the diverse multicultural environment of New York City. It will build on its earlier success in applying theoretical and empirical findings in the area of social integration and isolation, to understand barriers to diffusion of successful pain management programs, particularly self-management programs and strategies.

The mission of the center is to 1) translate the findings of basic behavioral and social science research into treatments, intervention programs, and policies that improve the health and well-being of older adults who suffer from or are at increased risk for pain, 2) promote translation of evidence-based practices, treatments, and interventions across
diverse venues to improve management of pain, 3) develop and test innovative methods, tools, and strategies that facilitate successful translation of evidence into practice and finally, 4) develop and maintain an effective infrastructure for conducting translational research on aging and pain.

For Further Information

Please email Karl Pillemer, kap6@cornell.edu, or Cary Reid, mcr2004@med.cornell.edu, if you have any questions or would like additional information about TRIPLL. A new website is in preparation and will be available shortly.

Human Development Outreach & Extension

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Claire Lyons, an undergraduate student in the Department of Human Development, was one of sixteen students who participated in the CCE Summer Internship Program which seeks to engage undergraduate students in outreach. Claire worked in Dr. Valarie Reyna's lab on the Reducing the Risk in Adolescence project. Her account follows.

My CCE summer internship provided me with an incredible learning experience. My big assignment for the summer was creating a complete up-to-date manual for the RTR+ sexual health curriculum. It was an exciting and fascinating project.

The RTR+ curriculum is a version of the standard RTR (Reducing the Risk) curriculumwhich is enhanced to emphasize the gist of risk and protection rather than precise, numeric facts.Evaluations of the RTR+ curriculum show that individuals in that intervention have better scoreson a large number of measures of knowledge and risk taking.

My job this summer was to get the RTR+ curriculum ready to be taught again, and bygroups outside of our lab. This project involved updating facts, adding elements to furtherenhance the curriculum, and compiling information into a comprehensive manual. I also helpedcreate a video version of the manual. I learned so much through the process, about adolescentrisk taking, Dr. Reyna's fuzzy-trace theory, and sex education programs. I also learned abouthow effective outreach interventions are developed and evaluated. I am continuing to work in Dr.Reyna's lab and am excited for the curriculum to be taught again and evaluated.

For Further Information

List of Other CCE 2009 Summer Internships

Laboratory for Rational Decision Making

Resources on Risky Decision Making in Adolescents

Human Development Outreach & Extension

Human Development Today e-News

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Matthew Belmonte, Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Development, brought together a panel of autism researchers and practitioners for a one-day update on current neurobiological theories of autism, and how this science relates to therapeutic practices for people with autism spectrum conditions, their parents, educators and other caregivers.  The conference, Autism in Central New York: Research and Practice, held in October was attended by 70 family members, educators, service providers, and students. Topics covered included the heritability of autism, genetics and the immune system, medications and autism, family dynamics, and autism services in Upstate New York.

Matthew Belmonte highlighted his research which has shown that short-range, local connections between brain cells may be abnormally strong in whole families affected by autism, whereas long-range connections may be abnormally disrupted just in those family members who develop autism. Other presenters included:

Evdokia Anagnostou , a clinician scientist at Bloorview Research Institute and assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Toronto. Her research explores autistic brain function and how it is affected by drugs.

Karen Fried, a licensed psychologist and Director of Autism Services at the Racker Centers in Ithaca, New York, and 1990 graduate of the Department of Human Development. She focuses on early diagnosis, intensive behavioural intervention, teaching, and integration of support from families, schools and communities.

Bill Hudenko, a licensed psychologist and assistant professor of clinical psychology and director of the Advancing Autism Treatment laboratory at Ithaca College. His current autism research interests include family dynamics, treatment outcomes, and new tests that can measure how symptoms change over time.

Antonio Persico is an associate professor of physiology at the Università “Campus Bio-Medico” and director of the Laboratory of Molecular Psychiatry and Psychiatric Genetics at the Fondazione Santa Lucia in Rome. His research focuses on the interacting genetic and environmental factors that can predispose the brain to autism or protect against it.
For More Information
Presentations from the Autism Conference

Email updates from Belmonte’s lab on autism research: send a message to autism-L-request@cornell.edu with the single word join in the body of the message.

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Gary Evans, developmental and environmental psychologist at Cornell University, is PI on a Grand Opportunity award from the National Institutes of Health called "Childhood Poverty and Brain Development: The Role of Chronic Stress and Parenting." Evans is the Elizabeth Lee Vincent Professor of Human Ecology in the Departments of Design and Environmental Analysis and of Human Development. One fifth of America's children grow up in poverty.  While there is good evidence that this is harmful to health, achievement, and socio-emotional adjustment, very little is known about the brain basis that mediates the detrimental effects of poverty.

The two-year research plan will utilize a well-characterized longitudinal sample of low- and middle-income individuals in combination with a comprehensive set of conceptually derived, innovative and validated neuroimaging tests to address two critical questions: How childhood poverty influences adult brain structure and function; and what underlying mechanisms might account for childhood poverty - brain relationships.  The invesitgators hypothesize that chronic physiological stress dysregulation as well as harsh, unresponsive parenting during childhood will account for some of the expected linkages between childhood poverty - adult brain structure and function - particularly in the hippocampus, amygdala, and the anterior cingulate/medial prefrontal cortex.

The project will utilize a 14 year, ongoing longitudinal research program of low and middle-income individuals focused on childhood poverty, physiological stress, and socio-emotional development conducted by Evans. Half of this sample (now age 22) grew up below the poverty line and half are middle income.  The sample is well characterized over their life course in terms of socioeconomic status and other demographic variables, as well as both physical and psychosocial risk exposures.  Primary outcome variables for this longitudinal cohort include multiple methodological indicators of physiological stress (neuroendocrine, cardiovascular, and metabolic) along with parental, self, and teacher ratings of socioemotional development (internalization, externalization, self regulation. In depth data on parenting are also included.

The neuroimaging work will be conducted in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan by Israel Liberzon, with expertise in the neuroimaging of stress in health and mental illness, and by James Swain a child psychiatrist studying the brain basis of parenting.

Human Development Today e-News

Human Development Outreach & Extension

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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 will be held May 4-7, in San Francisco, California. The CYFAR 2010 conference is planned for: community and university CYFAR Project Teams; extension staff, volunteers, and collaborators working with children, youth, and families; CYFERnet partners; and 4-H Military Partnerships.

CYFAR 2010 will feature inspiring keynote speakers, current youth and family research presenters, exciting interactive workshops, computer labs, and research posters, as well as the Program Showcase spotlighting successful CYFAR programs. Plans are underway for a playground build in San Francisco, along with in-depth pre-conference sessions, on Tuesday, May 4.  CYFAR 2010 will be held at the San Francisco Marriott, in the heart of downtown.

4-H National Headquarters invites interested children, youth and family professionals to participate in this high quality conference by submitting proposals for Workshops, Computer Labs, Research Posters, and Program Showcase Exhibits. For details about the conference, see the CYFAR 2010 website: http://www.cyfernet.org/cyfar10

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.

Human Development Today e-News

Human Development Outreach & Extension

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Valerie Reyna is PI on a new three-year federal formula funds project called Reducing Risk Taking in Adolescence Using Gist-Based Curricula. Reyna’s research team will partner with Cornell University Cooperative Extension in New York City to refine and test interventions to reduce unplanned pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and the incidence of obesity among youth in New York State. Three interdependent lines of research form the basis for the project: research on human judgment and decision making, on adolescent risky decision making, and on sexual risk interventions for youth.  Most recently, Reyna and colleagues completed a 5- year grant funded by from the National Institutes of Health to implement fuzzy-trace theory’s principles of representation and retrieval in a randomized trial with high school students designed to reduce premature pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.  This research will directly inform the current project.
The project will further refine and test the Gist-Enhanced Reducing the Risk (RTR+) curriculum, a successful sexually transmitted disease and pregnancy prevention curriculum based on Dr. Reyna’s research on adolescent decision making. A recent randomized control trial has shown the RTR+ curriculum to be effective.  The purpose of this study is to further increase the magnitude and duration of these effects and develop a teaching guide to facilitate implementation in New York State.

The project will also develop and test a “gist-enhanced” healthy lifestyles curriculum by applying Dr. Reyna’s research to another critical risk domain – obesity.  The thrust of this effort will be to enhance an existing evidence-based healthy lifestyles curriculum to incorporate new ways of “framing” healthy lifestyle decisions for youth.  Research indicates this will increase the effectiveness of interventions.  Data will be collected in preparation for a larger funding proposal. Finally, through an online professional development presentation, the project will seek to share the research and lessons learned with extension educators and others.

Through this research-community partnership, the project will combine empirical research from Reyna’s work, with practical knowledge gained through implementation of the two curricula, and use this knowledge to inform and facilitate future replications of the programs in New York and elsewhere.

For Further Information
Risky Decision Making in Adolescents
Laboratory for Rational Decision Making

Human Development Outreach & Extension

Human Development Today e-News