Promising Center for Young Children Receives Additional 2.2 Million
Partners for Early Childhood
USF and UCD have recruited an impressive team of experts from the following organizations to participate in the Center. Some partners bring extensive research histories regarding young children’s challenging behavior, while others provide access to important datasets on diverse populations, communities and programs. Partners also bring significant experience from involvement in direct services, and national alliances on a scale necessary for pervasive impact.
The University of Florida
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Kansas
Lehigh University
Pyramid Parent Training of New Orleans
Tennessee Voices for Children
National Head Start Association
The National Association for the Education of Young Children
The Division of Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children
The National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies
Aggression. Noncompliance. Defiance. Tantrums. Destruction of Property. These are the challenging behaviors in young children that lead parents and caregivers to seek help. Sources of help may include child welfare, public health and mental health services, pediatricians, preschools, as well as early care and intervention programs. In the past, these agencies and service providers have had limited access to information about best practices for children with, or at risk for, behavioral problems and their families.
Thanks to major funding provided by the US Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs, a center focused on increasing implementation of positive evidenced-based early childhood practices is now providing needed answers to professionals and families. The Center for Evidenced-Base Practice: Young Children with Challenging Behavior was initially proposed to OSEP by the Department of Child & Family Studies, USF, and the University of Colorado at Denver (UCD) on behalf of a national consortium of researchers and organizations committed to improving results for children with behavioral problems (see sidebar).
The Center, initially funded for five years at 5.5 million dollars, will receive an additional 2.2 million beginning this January to support an innovative longitudinal, multi-site study on the ecological predictors of social-emotional and behavioral development. During the Center’s inaugural year, training materials have been developed that are geared to a variety of professional disciplines serving young children. Soon, the Center will launch a comprehensive dissemination strategy for project materials and information to include partnering with major national organizations, creating an interactive website, and working with community agencies that provide services to young children and their families.
CFS leadership for the Center include Principal and Co-Principal Investigators Glen Dunlap, PhD and Lise Fox, PhD
“When young children have severe problem behavior, early intervention is absolutely essential to the child’s emotional well-being and future school success,” said Lise Fox. “Studies have shown that early appearing behavior problems are predictors of adolescent delinquency, gang membership, and adult incarceration. Children with problem behavior are more likely as teens to drop out of school, abuse drugs, and be arrested. We hope the Center will serve as a major resource for families, early educators, and other professionals so that the children and their families we strive to serve can more easily receive the help they need.”
For additional information, visit the Center website at http://ericps.crc.uiuc.edu/challenging/index.html.
The Department of Child and Family Studies (CFS) is a department of the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, University of South Florida. The faculty and staff of CFS are committed to enhancing the development, mental health and well-being of children and families through leadership in integrating research, theory & practice. For addtional information, visit the DARES website at http://cfs.cbcs.usf.edu/divisions/detail.cfm?id=2.