July 2019 Newsletter

Spotlight: Jackie Duron, Cohort Two Fellow

Cohort Two fellow, Jackie Duron, is an Assistant Professor at Rutgers University in the School of Social Work, a faculty affiliate of the Child Welfare and Well-Being Research Unit and a faculty affiliate of the Center on Violence Against Women and Children. Her research focuses on the intersection of family systems and legal systems, particularly as experienced in child welfare and juvenile justice. She is interested in the ways that these child-serving systems work to prevent adversities and traumas and intervene to address these.

In current work, Jackie is part of a collaborative team of researchers who have partnered with the New Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission to examine youths’ exposure to trauma and personal and legal outcomes following participation in complex trauma treatment. This research will involve identifying trauma exposures across groups and analyzing associated prosocial and delinquency behaviors.

Jackie is a member of the New Jersey Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect and the Child Advocacy Center (CAC) Multidisciplinary Team Advisory Board. As a member of these groups, she is working with the state’s Department of Children and Families to consider child protection needs related to the digital realm, problematic sexual behaviors, and development of CACs in all 21 counties. She is also co-chair of the Doris Duke Fellowships Network Leadership Council. Of the council, Jackie states, “As a leadership group we are spending time on a weekly, sometimes daily basis, thinking about the fellowships’ legacy and what the next phase of the network will be. This has been an incredible opportunity to provide service to an effort that has connected me to so many individuals who I am happy to call colleagues, collaborators, and friends. I am confident that our commitment to excellence in research, policy, and practice will drive new innovations for maintaining our connection and improving our communities.”

Jackie has been successfully reappointed following her third year review and will take a pre-tenure sabbatical in the Fall 2019 to work on publishing new manuscripts and launching new research. She will spend part of her time as a visiting scholar at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.

Summer Training Institute for Early Career or Transitioning Scholar

From Left to Right: Three Doris Duke Fellows: Barbara Chaiyachati, Cohort Three fellow; Ericka M. Lewis, Cohort Five fellow; and Megan Feely, Cohort Three fellow connected at the R25 Summer Training Institute.

Three Doris Duke Fellows: Barbara Chaiyachati, Cohort Three fellow; Ericka M. Lewis, Cohort Five fellow; and Megan Feely, Cohort Three fellow connected at the R25 Summer Training Institute: Building a Multidisciplinary Pipeline in Child Abuse and Neglect: Summer Training Institute for Early Career or Transitioning Scholars at Washington University in St. Louis in May 2019. This institute provided fellows and other attendees with a productive week of education, connection, and conversation. The week was densely packed with lectures and targeted mentoring conversations. A small cohort allowed for connection with other attendees as well as presenters, which was further reinforced by a tornado warning that collected scholars in the hotel basement for a few hours one evening. Reminiscent of the multi-disciplinary commitment of Doris Duke Fellowships, speakers presented a range of expertise from implementation science to longitudinal studies to genetics. For Barbara Chaiyachati, Cohort Three fellow, she is at a point of transition between research projects and stated that “this institute provided a space to focus on a new project in the larger context of maltreatment research and have access to field leaders to workshop and refine ideas through the week.”

In sum, the week was a fruitful experience - with a clear highlight of catching up with fellow Doris Duke Fellows alums. The training institute will be in NYC in 2020 and Chaiyachati recommends considering it among your 2020 travel plans!

Op-Ed Published in The American Prospect by Cohort One Fellow, Tova Walsh

Co-written with Doris Duke Fellowships Mentor, Mike MacKenzie, Cohort One fellow and Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Tova Walsh, discusses the evidence of child maltreatment at border camps. The Op-Ed highlights the clear violation of state and federal child abuse and neglect laws in these facilities and the need to take action to end this abuse.

Animated Short of the Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-Up Model (ABC) Created by Cohort Seven Fellow, Lindsay Zajac

Thanks to a graduate training grant awarded to The Center for Training, Evaluation, & Community Collaboration (C-TECC) at the University of Delaware, Cohort Seven fellow, Lindsay Zajac, created an animated short produced by Kindea Labs that provides an overview of the Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC) model and its evidence base. Zajac said, “It was a great training opportunity for me to further develop my skills communicating research findings with policy and practice relevance to audiences outside of academia.” Feel free to watch and share this 2-minute animated short published on the ABC lab website to learn more.

Fellows Updates:

Andrea Eastman, Cohort Six fellow, recently started a new position as a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California School of Social Work.

Lindsay Huffhines, Cohort Six fellow, recently started a position as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University investigating how emotion regulation links early adversity to inflammation, epigenetic regulation of the immune system, and health outcomes.

Kelly Jedd McKenzie, Cohort Five fellow, finished her Society for Research in Child Development Policy Fellowship and started a new position as a Social Science Research Analyst in the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) in the Administration for Children and Families. She will be working in OPRE's Division of Family Strengthening on research projects related to home visiting and child welfare. Additionally, resources are now available from the Trauma-Informed Approaches project Kelly developed during her fellowship in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), within the Department of Health and Human Services.

Lindsey Bullinger, Cohort Six fellow, recently published an article titled "How many children live with adults with opioid use disorder?” in the Children and Youth Services Review.

Bridget Cho, Cohort Seven fellow, started her clinical internship at the UC Davis Children’s Hospital CAARE Center. She will be conducting treatment and assessment with children and families experiencing adversity and trauma.

Anika Schenck-Fontaine, Cohort Six fellow, recently published a new paper in the Journal of Marriage and Family discussing food insufficiency among economically disadvantages families and children.

Upcoming Dates:

Prevent Child Abuse America National Conference: September 16 - September 18, 2019: Milwaukee, WI