The Brain Architects

Contents PodcastPanelistsAdditional ResourcesTranscriptIn April 2024, we hosted a webinar where we explored the science from our latest working paper, Extreme Heat Affects Early Childhood Development and Health. The Center’s Chief Science Officer, Dr. Lindsey Burghardt, joined by Dr. Kari Nadeau, Chair of the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, brought the latest research and insights from the field to discuss the intersection of heat, early childhood development, and health equity. They also discussed actionable solutions to benefit children, caregivers, and communities now and in the future. The webinar discussion has been adapted for this episode of the Brain Architects podcast.Panelists Lindsey Burghardt, MD, MPH, FAAPChief Science Officer, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University Kari Nadeau, MD, PhDChair of the Department of Environmental Health, Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health Rebecca Hansen, MFA (Webinar Host)Director of Communications, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University Cameron Seymour-Hawkins (Podcast Host)Communications Coordinator, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University Additional ResourcesExtreme Heat Affects Early Childhood Development and HealthHeat: An Action Guide for PolicyWebinar Recording: Extreme Heat and Early Childhood DevelopmentPlace Matters: The Environment We Create Shapes the Foundations of Healthy DevelopmentPlace Matters: What Surrounds Us Shapes UsTranscriptCameron Seymour-Hawkins: Welcome to The Brain Architects, a podcast from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. I’m Cameron Seymour-Hawkins, the Center’s Communications Coordinator. Our Center believes that advances in the science of child development provide a powerful source of new ideas that can improve outcomes for children and their caregivers. By sharing the latest science from the field, we hope to help you make that science actionable and apply it in your work in ways that can increase your impact. In April, we hosted a webinar where we explored the science from our latest working paper, Extreme Heat Affects Early Childhood Development and Health. The Center’s Chief Science Officer, Dr. Lindsey Burghardt, joined by Dr. Kari Nadeau, Chair of the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, brought the latest research and insights from the field to discuss the intersection of heat, early childhood development, and health equity. They also discussed actionable solutions to benefit children, caregivers, and communities now and in the future. We’re excited to share this conversation on today’s episode of the Brain Architects.  Now, without further ado, here’s Rebecca Hansen, the Center’s Director of Communications, who will set the stage for our conversation. Rebecca Hansen: Hello, everyone, and welcome. We’re very happy to have you all with us for today’s webinar, Extreme Heat and Early Childhood Development: A discussion on rising temperatures and strategies for supporting development and lifelong health. Whether you’re joining us for the first time or have been a regular at our webinars here at the Center on the Developing Child, we are very happy to have you with us today. So, today’s webinar is grounded in the first working paper from the Early Childhood Scientific Council on Equity and the Environment. The council is a multidisciplinary group that synthesizes and communicates about emerging science that can help to improve our understanding of how influences from the broader environment affect early childhood development and also lifelong health. The council’s first working paper, published earlier this year, focuses on the many ways that heat can affect development, including its impact on young children’s biological systems and how it can amplify the effects of systemic inequities. The paper offers strategies to mitigate the impact of extreme temperatures and points toward actionable solutions for cooling the communities where children live, grow, learn, and play. And we look forward to diving into these strategies throughout today’s conversation. So, without further ado, I am going to introduce our panel, starting with a note that while we had hoped to be joined today by Dr. Gaurab Basu, he was unfortunately unable to be here. We do have with us Dr. Lindsey Burghardt, who is Chief Science Officer at the Center on the Developing Child, where she develops and leads the center scientific agenda. She is also founding director of the Early Childhood Scientific Council for Equity and the Environment and leads their efforts to synthesize and communicate about the scientific mechanisms related to how children’s environments shape their development. Dr. Burghardt engages regularly with diverse stakeholders and audiences, with the aim of making the science both accessible and actionable. She is also a practicing primary care pediatrician in the community outside of Boston. Dr. Burghardt is joined today by Dr. Kari Nadeau, who is chair of the Department of Environmental Health, and John Rock, professor of climate and population studies at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Nadeau is a practicing clinician specializing in allergy, asthma and immunology in children and adults, and she has published over 400 papers, many in the field of climate change and health, for more than 30 years. She has devoted herself to understanding how environmental and genetic factors affect the risk of developing allergies and asthma, especially wildfire induced air pollution. Her laboratory has been studying air pollution and wildfire effects on children and adults, including wildland firefighters. Dr. Nadeau is also a member of the Early Childhood Scientific Council on Equity and the Environment. And we are very happy to have her here with us today. And with that, I will turn it over to Dr. Burghardt to begin our discussion.  Lindsey Burghardt: Thanks, Rebecca. I’m so excited for this conversation today. Thrilled to have Kari here with us. I’m just going to start by setting the stage a little bit for why this feels like such a timely and important conversation. And then we’ll dive right in. You know, I think many of us have recognized from our own experiences that temperatures are rising around the world. And, you know, science is confirming we’re having record setting heatwaves that are happening more often and they’re lasting longer than they have ever before. So I think with these increasing temperatures and with the increased frequency of these events, it makes this topic really timely and important because it’s something that’s already affecting kids and their caregivers today. And we know that excessive heat impacts kids development, both in the moment, but also potentially across their lifespan. And the good news is that there’s a lot of solutions that already exist and that communities are putting into effect already with really good results. So we’re going to talk today about how extreme heat affects development, the potential effects in pregnancy and throughout early childhood, and then get into some of those actionable solutions and thinking about how heat works to affect development. We really know that it starts with an understanding that environment influenced all children’s development by shaping the exposures and the experiences that they have. And this developmental environment is really the full range of exposures and experiences that they have in places where they live and learn and play and grow. And so what’s surrounding children is quite literally shaping their biology. But importantly, you know, these experiences and exposures can be positive or they can be negative. So environments can have exposures and experiences that fuel positive development, things like really strong foundational relationships with their caregivers and access to green space and breathing clean air. Or they can be more negative or potentially derail development. So things like extreme heat or breathing toxic air from wildfire smoke. So climate change is coming in and it’s creating and shaping changes to this environment of exposures and experiences. And it’s really important to understand, too, that these effects are not only direct on their biology, like breathing in their toxic wildfire smoke, but they’re also indirect and that things like extreme weather events and flooding can cause displacement that then places enormous stress on caregivers, which then has an important effect on those foundational relationships. And when it comes to climate change, this is just the first in a series of conversation that we’re hoping to have about how climate change is shaping developmental environments. And today we’re going to talk about Heat and, Kari, it’s just so amazing and special to have you join this conversatio...

In October 2024, we hosted a webinar where we explored the science from our latest working paper, A Cascade of Impacts: The Many Ways Water Affects Child Development. The discussion was led by the Center’s Chief Science Officer, Lindsey Burghardt, MD, MPH, FAAP, and featured Devon Payne-Sturges, DrPH, Associate Professor with the Department of Global, Environmental, and Occupational Health at the University of Maryland, School of Public Health, and Nathaniel Harnett, PhD, Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. In this podcast, learn about the many ways water affects early childhood health and well-being as well as actionable strategies and policy solutions that can support clean water access for all children and their caregivers.  The webinar discussion has been adapted for this episode of the Brain Architects podcast.

Contents Podcast Panelists Additional Resources Transcript In March 2024, we continued our Place Matters webinar series with our third installment: “A Place to Play: Moving Towards Fairness of Place for All Children.” During the webinar, we explored the power of play in supporting early childhood development, as well as the importance of ensuring that children and caregivers have access to safe green spaces, like parks and playgrounds. Our panel of experts discussed how access to safe, stimulating, and joyful play space is not equally distributed across communities, along with strategies to work toward building a future where all children have a safe place to play. The webinar discussion has been adapted for this episode of the Brain Architects podcast. Panelists Leah Anyanwu (Moderator)Programme Specialist, Children on the Move, Children’s Learning and Development, The LEGO Foundation Cynthia Briscoe BrownAtlanta Board of Education Seat 8 At Large Kathy Hirsh-PasekProfessor of Psychology and Neuroscience, Temple University; Senior Fellow, Brookings Institute Lysa RatlifChief Executive Officer, KABOOM! Le-Quyen VuExecutive Director, Indochinese American Council Melissa Rivard  (Webinar Host)Director of Engagement Strategies, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University Cameron Seymour-Hawkins (Podcast Host)Communications Coordinator, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University Additional Resources Place Matters: The Environment We Create Shapes the Foundations of Healthy Development  Presentation Slides  Playful Learning Landscapes  KABOOM!  Atlanta Community School Parks Initiative  LEGO Foundation  Indochinese American Council  Transcript Cameron Seymour-Hawkins: Welcome to The Brain Architects, a podcast from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. I’m Cameron Seymour-Hawkins, the Center’s Communications Coordinator. Our Center believes that advances in the science of child development provide a powerful source of new ideas that can improve outcomes for children and their caregivers. By sharing the latest science from the field, we hope to help you make that science actionable and apply it in your work in ways that can increase your impact.  In March, we continued our Place Matters webinar series with our third installment: “A Place to Play: Moving Towards Fairness of Place for All Children.” During the webinar, we explored how play and a family’s access to safe green spaces, like parks and playgrounds, support early development. Our panel of experts discussed how access to safe, stimulating, and joyful play space is not equally distributed along with strategies to work toward building a future where all children have a safe place to play. We’re excited to share part of this conversation on today’s episode of the Brain Architects podcast.   If you’re interested in in seeing some examples of community-led solutions to address gaps in play space equity presented by Lysa Ratliff of KABOOM and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek of Playful Learning Landscapes, we encourage you to head over to our YouTube channel to view the full webinar recording.   Now, without further ado, here’s Melissa Rivard, the Center’s Assistant Director of Innovation Strategies, who will set the stage for our conversation.  Melissa Rivard: Welcome and thank you all so much for joining us today. It’s really gratifying to have so many of you showing up for this really important topic. So thank you. I’m Melissa Rivard, Assistant Director of Innovation Strategies and I will be your host today. This webinar is part of a series of webinars that the Center on the Developing Child has hosted to examine the ways that a child’s broader environment, including the built and natural environments, as well as the systemic factors that shape them, play a role in shaping child development and health beginning before birth. Our focus today, the importance for all children to have access to stimulating joyful and safe places to play, is prompted by our focus on fairness of place as well as a desire to highlight a long standing collaboration between the Center on the Developing Child and the LEGO Foundation, and our shared belief in both the power of the early years and in the power of play to positively impact lifelong learning and health. Our moderator for the conversation is Leah Anyanwu. Leah is a program specialist at the LEGO Foundation, where she supports the Foundation’s early childhood portfolio with a focus on children displaced due to conflict and climate. Leah is a passionate educator and advocate with over a decade of experience working in education with a focus on early childhood and education systems reform. Along with Leah, we’ll be joined for this discussion by a phenomenal group of panelists who bring a wide range of expertise related to this topic. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek is a professor of psychology at Temple University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. She served as president of the International Congress for Infant Studies, was on the Governing Board of the Society for Research in Child Development and is on the board of 0 to 3. In 2010, Dr. Hirsh-Pasek founded Playful Learning Landscapes with her colleagues, an initiative that reimagines cities and public squares as places with science infused designs that enhance academic and social learning opportunities for young children. And we have Lysa Ratliff, who is CEO of KABOOM!, a national nonprofit that works to end play space inequity. Lysa is a leading national advocate for equitable access to play spaces, has been invited to speak at several White House events and engages with members of federal, state and local public offices advocating for and creating opportunities for kids to play across the nation. We’re also joined by Le-Quyen Vu, who is Executive Director of the Indochinese American Council in Philadelphia, a nonprofit working to empower disadvantaged and minoritized groups and newly arrived refugees and immigrants in their community to achieve social, economic and educational advancement and mobility. And Cynthia Briscoe Brown, a member of the Atlanta Board of Education, Seat 8 at large who’s been instrumental in passing a number of policy initiatives, such as the historic Equity Policy, the Atlanta Community School Parks Initiative and the Atlanta Public Schools Center for Equity and Social Justice. Without further ado, I am so pleased to hand the baton to you, Leah.   Leah Anyanwu: Thank you and welcome, everyone. I am so excited to hear from each of our panelists about the critical work connected to play equity and for this conversation, which centers the power of play and the importance of safe and quality play spaces. Our aspiration at the LEGO Foundation is that children become creative, engaged, lifelong learners who thrive in a constantly changing world by experiencing the benefits of learning through play. The scientific evidence around the power of play is clear and growing. In short, play is essential, everyone. Not only is play the best way for children to learn and to thrive, but play builds the foundations of lifelong learning and fosters holistic development. We’re here today because there is so much opportunity for children, families and communities when it comes to play and creating spaces that invite and enhance it at the community level in policy development and in the work that brings each of us to this conversation today. Yet we have a long way to go towards ensuring that the opportunity for quality play is equally accessible to all children, families and communities. To quote the Place Matters paper that Melissa just mentioned, “just as dimensions of the built and natural environment have been designed over time, they can be redesigned to support healthy development.” Throughout our conversation today, we will share insights from research and the field about ways to redesign, to rethink and to rebuild in pursuit of creating environments that support all children’s copy development. Now, without further ado, let’s get started. And I really want to invite Kathy to really focus first on the why. So, Kathy, good to have you here. What does this science tell us about why play matters for children, particularly young children? And ...

Contents Podcast Additional Resources Transcript   In December 2023, we continued our Place Matters webinar series with our second installment: “Understanding Racism’s Impact on Child Development: Working Towards Fairness of Place in the United States.” During the webinar, Stephanie Curenton, PhD, Nathaniel Harnett, PhD, Mavis Sanders, PhD, and Natalie Slopen, ScD, discussed their latest research, exploring how racism gets “under the skin” to impact children’s development and how it contributes to unequal access to opportunity in the places where children live, grow, play, and learn. Together, they explored ways to dismantle systemic barriers and work toward solutions that promote healthy child development. The webinar discussion has been adapted for this episode of the Brain Architects podcast.  Additional Resources Place Matters: The Environment We Create Shapes the Foundations of Healthy Development Moving Upstream: Confronting Racism to Open Up Children’s Potential Priorities for Child Trends’ Applied Research Agenda on Black Children and Families – Child Trends A Bibliographic Tool on Protective Community Resources for Children and Youth – Child Trends Black Children and Youth Can Benefit From Focused Research on Protective Community Resources – Child Trends Black Adolescents Are More Likely to Flourish in Neighborhoods Featuring Four Key Amenities – Child Trends Transcript   Cameron Seymour-Hawkins: Welcome to The Brain Architects, a podcast from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. I’m Cameron Seymour-Hawkins, the Center’s Communications Coordinator.Our Center believes that advances in the science of child development provide a powerful source of new ideas that can improve outcomes for children and their caregivers. By sharing the latest science from the field, we hope to help you make that science actionable and apply it in your work in ways that can increase your impact. In December, we continued our Place Matters webinar series with our second installment: “Understanding Racism’s Impact on Child Development: Working Towards Fairness of Place in the United States.” During the webinar, Doctors Stephanie Curenton, Nathaniel Harnett, Mavis Sanders, and Natalie Slopen, discussed their latest research, exploring how racism gets “under the skin” to impact children’s development and how it contributes to unequal access to opportunity in the places where children live, grow, play, and learn. Together, they explored ways to dismantle systemic barriers and work toward solutions that promote healthy child development. We’re excited to share this conversation on today’s episode of the Brain Architects podcast. Now, without further ado, here’s Tassy Warren, the Center’s Deputy Director and Chief Strategy Officer, who will set the stage for our conversation. Tassy Warren: Hello. Welcome to today’s webinar. Understanding Racism’s Impact on Child Development. Working towards fairness of place in the United States. We’re so excited to bring you into this conversation. Whether you’re joining us for the first time or are a regular to the Center on the Developing Child, thank you for being here today. This webinar is part of our Place Matters Webinar series. The series is designed to expand upon our Center’s recent work on how influences from our environments, particularly the built in natural environments, play a role in shaping early childhood development beginning before birth. Throughout this series, we’re highlighting scientific and community expertise and offering strategies to work towards fairness of place and to create the conditions that will allow all children to thrive. Today’s conversation will explore the intersection between policy, systemic inequalities, racial disparities, and children’s healthy development. We hope that you’ll gain insights that are helpful to you in the work you do in support of children and families. And thank you to everyone who submitted questions when registering for this event. We received hundreds of submitted questions, so we’ll be asking some of those questions in the second half of the conversation. Of course, we will not have time to address all the questions that are submitted or we would be here for days. But we were really intrigued going through all of the questions that were submitted. And we appreciate the thought-provoking ideas that you all brought to mind for us. So we will be thinking about how those questions can inform future conversations. So I am really excited in just a second to hand it over to Dr. Stephanie Curenton, who we are incredibly lucky to have leading this conversation for us today. Dr. Curenton is a professor in the Education Leadership and Policy Studies department at Boston University. Wheelock College of Education and Human Development and is the Director of the Center on the Ecology of Early Development, or CEED. CEED’S research and initiatives serve to inform policies that promote equity and justice for racially and ethnically minoritized children in the context of education, health and community. She is joined today by an outstanding panel of researchers Dr. Nathaniel Harnett, Dr. Mavis Sanders, and Dr. Natalie Slopen. Dr. Harnett is Director of the Neurobiology of Affective and Traumatic Experiences Laboratory at McLean Hospital and an Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Harnett’s research is focused on understanding the neurobiological mechanisms that mediate susceptibility to trauma and stress related disorders. Dr. Sanders is a Senior Research Scholar of Black Children and Families at Child Trends, where she leads in applied research agenda that advances racial equity and social justice. Before joining Child Trends in 2021, Dr. Sanders served as a professor of education and affiliate professor in the doctoral program in Language, Literacy and Culture at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Dr. Slopen is an Assistant Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Slopen is a social epidemiologist, and her research focuses on social and contextual factors that shape childhood development and inequities in health. Now, I’ll let Dr. Curenton share more about herself and kick off our conversation. Stephanie Curenton: Hello, everyone. I am honored to be here to moderate this conversation and to represent CEED as well as Boston University. As Tassy was saying, our work at CEED specifically focuses on understanding how racism impacts Black children’s growth and development and ways in which families use their cultural assets and social capital to protect themselves from the harm of racism. And we know that this conversation we’re having today is critically important because racism operates on multiple levels and it impacts young children throughout all levels of their biology, their social development and other ecological systems. And in the prenatal phase and the first years of life, they are the most sensitive developmental period. So it’s really critical to understand how racism exerts its impact on the health and growth of prenatal children and infants and toddlers. As a scholar myself, I’ve been investigating and doing work on the topic of racism in young children’s learning for decades. By the fall of 2024, CEED, along with our partners at Equity Research Action Coalition, will be publishing a special issue for Early Childhood Research Quarterly on this topic, featuring researchers from a variety of disciplines and highlighting the work of several junior scholars. So the scientific evidence is clear, and it’s growing that racism imposes unique and substantial stressors on the daily lives of families and caregivers. And understanding how these stressors affect child health and development provides a compelling framework for understanding and protecting young children. Such frameworks are the Rise Three Model, for which I’m a coauthor with Dr. Iheoma Iruka. It presents new ideas about how communities, policies, programs and funding streams might confront and dismantle inequalities and build a stronger future for all of us. But we’re here today because there is so much opportunity ahead of us at the community level, at the policy level, and in all the work that brings each of us to this conversation today, as the Center on the Developing Child wrote in Their Place Matters paper that was published earlier this year. It says just as dimensions of the built and natural environment have been designed over time, they can be redesigned to support healthy development. So throughout our discussion today, we will share ways to redesign, rethink and advance forward in pursuit of creating environments that are anti-racist and can support all children’s healthy development. And with that, I’m so excited to be moderating this conversation with...

Contents Podcast Panelists Additional Resources Transcript   In the fall of 2023, we kicked off our three-part Place Matters webinar series with our first installment: “A New Lens on Poverty: Working Towards Fairness of Place in the United States.” The webinar discussion featured the work of Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD, MPH, FAAP, whose research uncovered the water crisis in Flint, H. Luke Shaefer, PhD, co-author of the new book The Injustice of Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America, and their groundbreaking new program, RxKids, an innovative effort to address child poverty and improve health equity. This conversation, moderated by our Chief Science Officer, Lindsey Burghardt, MD, MPH, FAAP, has been adapted for the Brain Architects podcast.   Panelists Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD, MPH, FAAPFounding Director, Pediatric Public Health Initiative  H. Luke Shaefer, PhDProfessor of Public Policy and Director of Policy Solutions, University of Michigan  Lindsey C. Burghardt, MD, MPH, FAAP (Moderator)Chief Science Officer, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University Rebecca Hansen, MFA (Webinar Host)Director of Communications, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University Amelia Johnson (Podcast Host)Communications Specialist, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University Additional Resources Place Matters: The Environment We Create Shapes the Foundations of Healthy Development RxKids The Injustice of Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City Transcript Amelia Johnson: Welcome to The Brain Architects, a podcast from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. I’m Amelia Johnson, the Center’s Communications Specialist. Our Center believes that advances in the science of child development provide a powerful source of new ideas that can improve outcomes for children and their caregivers. By sharing the latest science from the field, we hope to help you make that science actionable and apply it in your work in ways that can increase your impact.  In October, we kicked off our three-part Place Matters webinar series with our first installment: “A New Lens on Poverty: Working Towards Fairness of Place in the United States.” During the webinar, Dr. Lindsey Burghardt, our Chief Science Officer, moderated a discussion between Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, whose research uncovered the water crisis in Flint, and H. Luke Shaefer, co-author of the new book The Injustice of Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America. The resulting explores how the qualities of the places where people live are shaped by historic and current policies, which have created deep disadvantage across many communities with important implications for the health and development of the children who live there. We’re happy to share these insights with you all on today’s episode.  Now, without further ado, here’s Rebecca Hansen, the Center’s Director of Communications, who will set the stage with a brief overview of the webinar series.  Rebecca Hansen: Alright, hello, everyone. My name is Rebecca Hansen, and I’m the Director of Communications here at the Center on the Developing Child. And I’m very excited to welcome you all to today’s webinar, A New Lens on Poverty: Working Toward Fairness of Place in the United States. This webinar is the first in an ongoing series designed to examine the many ways that a child’s broader environment, including the built and natural environments, as well as the systemic factors that shape those environments, all play a role in shaping early childhood development beginning before birth. In this series, we will explore various environment tool influences from both scientific and community-based perspectives, including strategies to work toward fairness of place and improve existing conditions to allow all children to thrive. I want to thank everyone who submitted questions for our panelists today. We received hundreds of questions, and we will turn to some of those in the second half of the conversation. And with that, I am excited now to hand it over to Dr. Lindsey Burghardt, who is the Chief Science Officer at the Center on the Developing Child and a practicing pediatrician in the community outside of Boston. Lindsey, I will pass it over to you to introduce our panelists and get the conversation started.  Lindsey Burghardt: Thanks, Rebecca. And thanks to everybody who took time out of their day to join us here. And before I introduce our fantastic panelists, I’m just going to start by giving some context and some background for our conversation, and then we’ll jump right in. And I think we’ll have a great conversation together today. So earlier this year, the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child published their 16th working paper and they called it Place Matters: The Environment We Create Shapes the Foundation of Healthy Development. And that working paper laid out a framework for how the child-caregiver relationship is critically important and just as important as it’s ever been. But in shaping early childhood development. But that relationship doesn’t exist in isolation. And the places where people live affect what they’re exposed to. And that in turn affects maturing biological systems. And those effects can be positive or they can be negative. And that’s what we mean when we say that Place Matters. So the physical environment that surrounds children, their built environment, their natural environment. Both of those are shaped by human actions, including very intentional decisions around policies that shape the environments where kids live and the quality and the conditions in the environment where children live. They’re not evenly or randomly distributed. They’re shaped by and they’re deeply rooted in public policies and social history that we’ll talk about today. So for many families, both these historical roots, as well as present day policies and decisions being made, are resulting in really an uneven distribution of risk and opportunity in neighborhoods and in the places where families are raising young children. So I am thrilled just completely thrilled to introduce two really special guests who are going to talk more about this today and who are really deeply committed to reshaping children’s environments to support their healthy development. Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha is a fellow pediatrician. She’s an activist and author. Just an amazing person who leads an innovative program called Rx Kids, which aims to address child poverty and health equity. And it does it through unconditional direct cash payments to residents of Flint, Michigan, during pregnancy and throughout the first year of their child’s life. Our other panelists, Dr. Luke Schafer. among many things, is the Hermann Amalie Kohn Professor of Social Justice and Social Policy at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy and the inaugural Director of Poverty Solutions. And he’s partnering with Mona to launch Rx Kids. Luke has a new book that came out this summer, The Injustice of Place, and it provides what I think is a really sweeping understanding of extreme poverty in the United States. And it puts a new lens on poverty, I think, because of the unique multidimensional measures, Luke, that you used in the book, as well as the way that you engage the communities when you are conducting research for the book. So Mona and Luke, welcome. I’m really excited to have you here. Mona Hanna-Attisha: Thank you so much for having us.  Lindsey Burghardt: So the two of you are working in really close collaboration with the community in Flint to address poverty in really actionable ways. And what I’m hoping today and what we talked about before when we prepared for this webinar was really focusing on the innovative approach to solutions that you guys have taken and so that those who are listening can apply anything that resonates in their own contexts. Sound good? Awesome. All right, let’s do it. So first question for Mona. We have some international listeners and some who may not be as familiar with maybe how your really specific engagement in this area got kicked off and your work related to the Flint water crisis and you really helped to shine a spotlight on a key example of how community disadvantage and underinvestment influence exposures that s

Contents Podcast Panelists Additional Resources Transcript In June, we hosted a webinar about our latest Working Paper, Place Matters: The Environment We Create Shapes the Foundations of Healthy Development, which examines how a wide range of conditions in the places where children live, grow, play, and learn can shape how children develop. The paper examines the many ways in which the built and natural environment surrounding a child can affect their development, emphasizes how the latest science can help deepen our understanding, and points towards promising opportunities to re-design environments so that all children can grow up in homes and neighborhoods free of hazards and rich with opportunity. Corey Zimmerman, our Chief Program Officer, moderated a discussion around these themes between Dr. Lindsey Burghardt (Chief Science Officer) and Dr. Dominique Lightsey-Joseph (Director of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Strategy) which has been adapted for this episode of the Brain Architects podcast.     Panelists Tassy Warren, EdM (Podcast Host)Deputy Director and Chief Strategy Officer, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University Corey Zimmerman, EdM (Moderator)Chief Program Officer, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University Lindsey C. Burghardt, MD, MPH, FAAPChief Science Officer, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University Dominique Lightsey-Joseph, EdD, EdMDirector of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (EDIB) Strategy, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University Additional Resources Place Matters: The Environment We Create Shapes the Foundations of Healthy Development Place Matters: An Action Guide for Policy Place Matters: What Surrounds Us Shapes Us Child Opportunity Index (COI) Healthy School Environments – US Environmental Protection Agency Transcript Tassy Warren: Welcome to The Brain Architects, a podcast from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. I’m Tassy Warren, the Center’s Deputy Director and Chief Strategy Officer. Our Center believes that advances in the science of child development provide a powerful source of new ideas that can improve outcomes for children and their caregivers. By sharing the latest science from the field, we hope to help you make that science actionable and apply it in your work in ways that can increase your impact. In June, we hosted a webinar about our latest Working Paper, Place Matters: The Environment We Create Shapes the Foundations of Healthy Development, which examines how a wide range of conditions in the places where children live, grow, play, and learn can shape how childre During the webinar, Corey Zimmerman, our Chief Program Officer, moderated a discussion around these themes between Dr. Lindsey Burghardt (Chief Science Officer) and Dr. Dominique Lightsey-Joseph (Director of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Strategy) which we’re happy to share with you all on today’s episode. To access the full Working Paper and related publications, please visit our website at developingchild.harvard.edu. Now, without further ado, here’s Corey Zimmerman.   Corey Zimmerman: Hi, everybody. Welcome. I’m Corey Zimmerman. I’m the Chief Program Officer here at the Center on the Developing Child, and today we’re going to be discussing a paper, the name of it is Place Matters: The Environment We Create Shapes the Foundation of Healthy Development. This paper was written by our National Scientific Council on Developing Child and was released earlier this year in March. We see this webinar as an opportunity to begin to understand a broader frame for thinking about what influences early childhood development, the role that inequity plays in influencing the environment children are in, and third, some early thoughts on new actors or sectors that might be called upon given this broader frame, to be able to join us in our collective effort to improve outcomes for all children and their families. Okay. With that, let’s get started. It is my pleasure to introduce you to my two colleagues, Dr. Lindsey Burghardt, who is the Chief Science Officer here at the Center on the Developing Child. And then second, Dr. Dominique Lightsey-Joseph, who is our Director of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Strategy here at the Center. Okay. So we’re going to start with a brief overview of the Working Paper, Place Matters from Dr. Burghardt.   Lindsey Burghardt: Thank you again, Corey, for that introduction. And thanks to all of you today who took time out of your day to join us and to hear about this new working paper from the National Scientific Council. So the overall focus of this paper is really to broaden the frame of how we’re talking about early childhood development and health. And we’re going to look upstream today and consider all the different factors that influence how kids develop. So we all experience this continuous influx and flow of influences from our environments, and they begin before birth right in the earliest days of the prenatal period, and they continue throughout our lives. And these influences include the environments of relationships and those environments–that environment of relationships–is just as important as it’s ever been. And children also experience exposures and influences from the physical environment that surrounds them and their caregivers. So particularly the built and natural environments. And there are a really wide range of conditions in places where children live, learn, play and grow, and all these conditions have the ability to get under the skin and affect the developing brain and also other biological systems. So the immune system, the microbiome and the metabolic system, among others. And beginning before birth, these environmental conditions are shaping how children develop and that, in turn, has the ability to shape their lifelong physical and mental health. So the built and natural environments and the systemic factors that shape them, like policies that influence where people are able to live and how resources are distributed, interact with each other and they interact with a child’s social environment in really deeply interconnected ways. So this is really what we mean when we say that place matters. So every environment is infused with a combination of influences, and these influences can have positive or negative effects on health and development. And it’s also really important to recognize that level of exposure to risk and access to opportunity for children are not distributed equally. So in 2004, the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child described the effects of early life experiences on the developing brain and its first working paper called Young Children Develop in an Environment of Relationships. And over the two decades that followed, this concept really helped to make the case for caregiver-child relationships is sort of the active ingredient in how environments can influence the architecture of the developing brain. So the environment of relationships includes the presence of responsive relationships, the presence of significant stress and adversity, caregiver well-being, social connectedness, community support, faith and cultural traditions. And so more recently as our understanding of how early the early origins of health and disease have advanced, we’ve also really started to understand how early experiences affect multiple developing biological systems beyond the brain. So thinking about the immune system, the metabolic system, the respiratory system, and actually how these systems are interacting with each other and shaping each other as well as the brain. So the environment of relationships again, is just as important as it’s ever been, but these environments–that environment or relationship–it doesn’t exist in isolation; it exists in the context of is much broader environments that include the built and natural environments that surround children. Exposures from the natural and the built environments also directly shape the development of biological systems inside the body, and they interact with adult-child relationships in a really deeply interconnected way. And these exposures can be positive or negative, and they can include things like air quality and temperature that children breathe, the purity and availability of their water supply, their ability to access safe green space and healthy housing and whether or not they’re exposed to things like environmental toxicants. S...

Contents Podcast Panelists Additional Resources Transcript In April, we hosted a webinar about the recently released IDEAS Impact Framework Toolkit—a free online resource designed to help innovators in the field of early childhood build improved programs and products that are positioned to achieve greater impact in their communities. During the webinar, we provided an overview of the site and had the opportunity to hear from two organizations in the field about how they leveraged the toolkit and its resources to shape their work: Valley Settlement and Raising a Reader. This episode of the Brain Architects podcast features highlights from the webinar. If you’re interested in hearing a full walk through of the toolkit by the Director of our Pediatric Innovation Initiative, Dr. Melanie Berry, please head over to our YouTube channel to view the full webinar recording. Panelists Aeshna Badruzzaman, PhD (Moderator)Senior Project Manager for Instructional Design, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University Melanie Berry, PsyDDirector of the Pediatric Innovation Initiative, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University Sally Boughton, MNMDirector of Development & Communications at Valley Settlement Andres Garcia Lopez, EdM, MBASenior Project Manager, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University Karla ReyesProgram Manager of El Busesito Mobile Preschool Program at Valley Settlement Michelle Sioson HymanSenior Vice President, Programs and Partnerships at Raising a Reader Corey Zimmerman, EdM (Podcast Host)Chief Program Officer, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University Additional Resources IDEAS Framework Toolkit Valley Settlement Raising a Reader Transcript Corey Zimmerman: Welcome to the Brain Architects, a podcast from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. I’m Corey Zimmerman, the Center’s Chief Program Officer. Our Center believes that advances in the science of child development provide a powerful source of new ideas that can improve outcomes for children and their caregivers. By sharing the latest science from the field, we hope to help you make that science actionable, and apply it in your work in ways that can increase your impact. With that goal in mind, the Center recently released the IDEAS Impact Framework Toolkit—a free online resource designed to help innovators in the field of early childhood build improved programs and products that are positioned to achieve greater impact in their communities. The Toolkit is self-guided, self-paced, and provides a structured and flexible approach that facilitates program development, evaluation, and fast-cycle iteration, including resources to help teams develop and investigate a clear and precise Theory of Change. In April, we hosted a webinar about the toolkit, where we provided an overview of the site and had the opportunity to hear from teams at several organizations in the field about how they leveraged the toolkit and its resources to shape their work. We’re excited to share those discussions with you here on this episode of the Brain Architects podcast. If you’re interested in hearing a full walk through of the toolkit, by the Director of our Pediatric Innovation Initiative, Dr. Melanie Berry, please head over to our YouTube channel to view the full webinar recording. You’ll also hear from Dr. Melanie Berry during the Q&A portion. The full IDEAS toolkit we’ll be talking about today can be found at ideas.developingchild.harvard.edu. And now, without further ado, here’s Dr. Aeshna Badruzzaman, the Center’s Senior Project Manager for Instructional Design and the moderator for our panel discussion. Aeshna Badruzzaman: Hello, everyone. Welcome. My name is Dr. Aeshna Badruzzaman. I am a Senior Project Manager for Instructional Design at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University or HCDC, and I’m part of the development team of the IDEAS Impact Framework Toolkit. And today, I’ll be your host. So, you may hear me come off mute, and help guide presenters, and I’ll be facilitating our question and answer period. So, we are so pleased to be talking to you today about this resource. The IDEAS Impact Framework was born out of more than a decade of the Frontiers of Innovation Initiative or FOI. And some of you may have been partners in that effort. So, while our team no longer offers live training on the framework, we are so excited to be introducing it to you as a free open access resource. And we really hope that this format is going to help make IDEAS accessible to innovators in the field of early childhood development moving forward. The framework was developed in partnership with the University of Washington College of Education, and the University of Oregon Center for Translational Neuroscience. With support from the Gates Foundation, The Lego Foundation, Porticus and the Hemera Foundation. I encourage you to check out our history and acknowledgments page of the toolkit for more information about our various collaborations and supporters throughout time as well. Now I’ll go ahead and introduce our first set of speakers from folks at Valley Settlement. We have with us Karla Reyes, who is the program manager of the El Busesito mobile preschool program at Valley Settlement, which is a nonprofit that works to create opportunities for the Latino community in the Aspen to Parachute region of Colorado. Karla joined Valley Settlement in March 2015, as a preschool teacher for El Busesito until June 2021 when she took on a leadership role. And we also have Sally Boughton who is the Director of Development and Communications at Valley Settlement, a nonprofit again, serving the rural Aspen to Parachute region Colorado with six to generation programs designed by and for local Latina immigrant families. And Sally has been with Valley Settlement for over five years and began managing the organization’s evaluation function in 2021. Thank you so much Karla and Sally look forward to hearing from you. Karla Reyes: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for inviting us to share our work with you all and how we have used the framework. I’m going to talk a little bit about it, we’ll see the program and how I kind of started. The idea that it will succeed though began in 2011. We had two bilingual and bicultural community organizers, who met one on one with about 300 families from the Aspen to Parachute region of Colorado. And they learned about their lives and the barriers that they faced within our community. One of the findings from the initial listening tour was that only 1% of Latino children in our community were enrolled in preschool. We also learned that three of the biggest barriers for families to participate in preschool programs were language, cost and transportation resulting in lack of access. Now we have all this information. And we started thinking creatively of different ways that we could bring more access to preschool education to our community. I have also seen those one of the first two generation programs that we launched in Valley Settlement to address the needs of preschool education. And throughout the years Valley Settlement has continued to learn, evolve and co-design programming to respond to community needs. Now, our program has four mobile preschool buses that have been retrofitted into small preschool classrooms. We have two teachers on the bus, and we serve eight children at a time, we provide families with about five to 10 hours of free preschool education. We have about 96 children that we serve annually between 40 to 50 children graduating at the end of the school year and moving on to kindergarten. And currently right now we serve different five different neighborhoods within our community. And we strive to build close relationships with families. So, our program really is designed to meet families at where they are, are at and start breaking down those barriers. We host family nights; we have home visits with our families. We have parent teacher conferences; we have different ways that families can volunteer within our program. We provide a lot of materials for families to use that home so that they can do home activities and homework packets with their students. And we really try to engage with the families. So, each one of our teachers speak Spanish, is bilingual and bicultural. So, this really allows that bond and that relationship to build with each one of our families. I’m going to hand it off to Sally Boughton, and she’s going to talk a little bit ...

Contents Podcast Panelists Additional Resources Transcript These days, resilience is needed more than ever, and one simple, underrecognized way of supporting healthy and resilient child development is as old as humanity itself: play. Far from frivolous, play contributes to sturdy brain architecture, the foundations of lifelong health, and the building blocks of resilience, yet its importance is often overlooked. In this podcast, Dr. Jack Shonkoff explains the role of play in supporting resilience and five experts share their ideas and personal stories about applying the science of play in homes, communities, and crisis environments around the world. Panelists Andres Bustamante, Assistant Professor, University of California Irvine School of Education Laura Huerta Migus, Deputy Director, Office of Museum Services at Institute for Museum and Library Services Lynneth Solis, Researcher and lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education Erum Mariam, Executive Director, BRAC Institute of Educational Development, BRAC University Michael Yogman, Pediatrician, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge Hospital Additional Resources Resources from the Center on the Developing Child Video: Play in Early Childhood: The Role of Play in Any Setting Video: How-to: 5 Steps for Brain-Building Serve and Return Handout: 5 Steps for Brain-Building Serve and Return Video: Building Babies’ Brains Through Play: Mini Parenting Master Class (from UNICEF) Report: Three Principles to Improve Outcomes for Children and Families InBrief: The Science of Resilience Resources from Our Guests Panel Learning to Cope through Play UCI STEM Learning Lab Playful Learning Landscapes Understanding the Social Wellbeing Impacts of the Nation’s Libraries and Museums Play in Humanitarian Settings 5 Takeaways from Supporting Refugee Parents to Help Children Learn and Thrive During Covid-19 BRAC Humanitarian Play Lab: when playing becomes healing BRAC: ECD and Play “I try to take their pain away through play”: A healing experiment in Rohingya refugee camps (Quartz: membership required) Prescription for Play The Power of Play: A Pediatric Role in Enhancing Development in Young Children Preventing Childhood Toxic Stress: Partnering with Families and Communities to Promote Relational Health Transcript Sally Pfitzer, host: Welcome to the Brain Architects, a podcast from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. I’m your host, Sally Pfitzer. Our Center believes that advances in science can provide a powerful source of new ideas that can improve outcomes for children and families. We want to help you apply the science of early childhood development to your everyday interactions with children and take what you’re hearing from our experts and panels and apply it to your everyday work. So in today’s episode, we’re going to get serious about the topic of play. For children, play is a fundamental building block of child development, but its role in supporting resilience is often overlooked. And after the past few years, we surely need resilience now more than ever! For me, as a former preschool teacher, I’m especially excited about this episode and speaking with today’s experts, because I’ve seen first-hand how important play is for young children’s development. But what can science tell us about it? And what can be done to support more play in everyday life, even in crisis contexts? In this podcast, we’ll dive into the science of play and resilience, and then we’ll explore how people are using that knowledge to support child development around the world. To explain the science, we’ll start with Dr. Jack Shonkoff, Professor of Child Health and Development and the Director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. So Jack, what do we mean by resilience and what do we know about how people develop it? Jack Shonkoff: What we mean by resilience is that we’re talking about the ability to do well, the ability to cope, the ability to overcome hardship, or adversity, or threat to your well-being. So the key about resilience is it doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Resilience is something that you actively build, and you build it in the context of relationships in an environment that helps you learn how to cope with challenges, cope with stress, cope with hardships. And it starts very early. It starts in infancy. And infants need to have some sense of participation in that. But also, you don’t do it totally on your own. You need the support and the security, when you’re a baby, of adults who basically help provide a manageable environment in which you can learn resilience. So, if stresses and threats are overwhelming, they can overwhelm the system. And you don’t really get a chance to build resilience. If every time something happens that challenges you, somebody jumps in to protect you, that’s not good for you either because you have to build that yourself. So the environment has a lot to do with how you develop resilience and skills, but so does your own activity on the environment, your own sense of being a player rather than just a receiver. But no two children are the same, even children in the same family, growing up in the same environment. From birth, children differ in how adaptable they are. If you go into a newborn nursery in a hospital, the nurses who work there can tell you about how those babies are all different from each other. Some kids are just more easygoing, constitutionally. Some kids roll with the flow, a little bit easier than others. So in a sense, we don’t all start off with the same way of reacting to stress or hardship. Sally: That’s great. And thinking about how resilience is built, are there specific building blocks that you need to think about? In this case, could you talk a little bit more about how play might support those building blocks? Jack: Play, by definition, is an interactive process or a kind of self-directed process. It’s not by chance that all children, regardless of where they live in the history of the species, use play as a way to develop skills. It’s the way children learn to master their environment. And they learn to try things out. They test things. They test limits. It’s driven by curiosity, and it’s driven by an inborn drive to master the environment. And if you think about what resilience is all about, resilience is mastering your environment. It’s building the skills to be able to cope, building the skills to have strategies, to deal with your own reactions, be able to have some control over what’s going on around you. And none of that would develop as well as it does if you depended on just being taught how to be resilient. No. Your ability, your natural ability to play, is one of the most important strategies that we have developmentally to build resilience in the face of adversity. Sally: So, what is the science that underlines this connection between healthy development and how play supports it? Jack: God, there are mountains of science that help us to understand the process of development. And three princ...

The devastating toll of the pandemic has underscored the critical importance of connecting what science is telling us to the lived experiences of people and communities. In March of 2020, we recorded episodes exploring the impact the coronavirus pandemic could have on child development. Now, a year later, we wanted to continue these conversations and discuss what we’ve learned, what needs to change, and where we go from here. Contents Podcast Speakers Additional Resources Transcript In the final episode in this special series, host Sally Pfitzer speaks with Dr. Nancy Rotter, a pediatric psychologist and the Director of Psychology in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Ambulatory Care Division at Massachusetts General Hospital. They discuss how the pandemic changed conversations around mental health, why we need to integrate mental health into the context of overall health, and what caregivers can do to help children prepare for the lessening of restrictions and the return to school. Subscribe below via your podcast platform of choice to receive all new episodes as soon as they’re released. Speakers Sally Pfitzer, Podcast Host Dr. Nancy Rotter, Pediatric Psychologist and Director of Psychology, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Ambulatory Care Division at Massachusetts General Hospital; Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School Additional Resources Resources from the Center on the Developing Child The Brain Architects Podcast: COVID-19 Special Edition: Mental Health in a Locked-Down World Q&A: The Coronavirus Pandemic: Mental Health One Year Later Re-Envisioning, Not Just Rebuilding: Looking Ahead to a Post-COVID-19 World Working Paper 15: Connecting the Brain to the Rest of the Body: Early Childhood Development and Lifelong Health Are Deeply Intertwined InBrief: Connecting the Brain to the Rest of the Body A Guide to COVID-19 and Early Childhood Development Resources Resources recommended by Dr. Nancy Rotter Interim Guidance on Supporting the Emotional and Behavioral Health Needs of Children, Adolescents and Families During the COVID-19 Pandemic Mothers—and fathers—report mental, physical health declines Mental Health Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Update Depression and anxiety in pregnancy during COVID-19: A rapid review and meta-analysis COVID-19’s Disproportionate Effects on Children of Color Will Challenge the Next Generation A Guide to Mental Health Resources for COVID-19 How to Talk to Your Children About the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Preparing Children for When Their Parents Return to Work National Alliance on Mental Health: Mental Health By the Numbers Transcript Sally: Welcome to The Brain Architects, a podcast from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. I’m your host Sally Pfitzer. In March of 2020, we recorded episodes exploring the impact the coronavirus pandemic could have on child development. You may remember we discussed the importance of self-care for caregivers, and the importance of physical distancing, not social distancing.  And now a year later, we wanted to continue those conversations and discuss what we’ve learned, what needs to change, and where we go from here. Joining us on today’s podcast, we have Dr. Nancy Rotter. She’s a pediatric psychologist and the Director of Psychology in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Ambulatory Care Division, at Mass General Hospital. Thanks so much for being with us today, Nancy. Dr. Rotter: Thanks for having me, Sally. Sally: So, the pandemic has made conversations about mental health more common and perhaps even less stigmatized. How do we make sure that this perspective and these conversations continue even as vaccines become available and restrictions are lessened? Dr. Rotter: You know, I agree that there has been some shifting over time in terms of awareness and acknowledgement about mental health and specifically children’s mental health. I think the pandemic has really raised these conversations to a higher level. I think that there’s certainly been comfort in talking about heightened distress that people have experienced due to the pandemic secondary to the many stressors that families have experienced. I think about things like loss of typical childcare support, like daycare, in-person school, or even grandparents caring for children, unemployment or shifts to having to work at home, social isolation. And I think all of these things are widely understood as contributing to how people are coping and to mental health. I think sometimes people find it easier to describe experiences of anxiety and depression in the context of stress and the stress perhaps experienced by the pandemic. You might not hear those words as much. You might hear things that sound less stigmatizing—that people might talk a lot about stress or isolation or fatigue, rather than referring to specific mental health conditions themselves. I do think that it might be a good direction to go in to think about how we can acknowledge mental health conditions as an aspect of overall health so that we can increasingly talk about things like depression or anxiety or substance use disorders in the same way that we speak about diabetes or heart disease. Shifting towards a more specific and accurate language for mental health conditions can really make a difference. because I think if we do so we can really add clarity for diagnoses, which then result in leading to more effective evidence-based treatments to treat these illnesses. Again, thinking about these like we do other health conditions. I think the continued progress, to kind of get to the other part of your question, towards the de-stigmatization of mental health conditions will really require increased and ongoing discussions about emotional health, and to have this happen in schools, in the media, within families, and certainly when children go to see their pediatrician. I think that pediatricians more and more are providing mental health screenings at routine exams, asking developmentally based questions to both parents and children or adolescents to screen for things that are concerning—anxiety, depression, suicidality, substance use disorders. And I kind of like the idea of thinking of that type of screening as mental health vital signs. And for me, that fits with the concept that when you go to your pediatrician or you go to your doctor, there’s always vital signs. They take your heart rate and your blood pressure, and it seems to me that using that kind of language really is helpful and is something that’s understandable to everyone and can help to really de-stigmatize the concept of mental health. And I do hope that we continue to work in the direction of integration of mental health into the context of overall health. Sally:  Yeah, absolutely. So many important points, and I especially love that idea of the vital signs. Nancy, from your perspective, has the pandemic exposed any weaknesses in our mental health care systems, particularly for young children? And how should we take those into consideration as we move forward? Dr. Rotter: I would describe the primary challenges in our mental health care system for young children as twofold. The first relates to access to mental health care and the second is for increased need for prevention and early intervention services. While thinking about the importance of mental health care for children, I think it’s really important to be ...

The devastating toll of the pandemic has underscored the critical importance of connecting what science is telling us to the lived experiences of people and communities. In March of 2020, we recorded episodes exploring the impact the coronavirus pandemic could have on child development. Now, a year later, we wanted to continue these conversations and discuss what we’ve learned, what needs to change, and where we go from here. Contents Podcast Speakers Additional Resources Transcript In the third episode in this 4-part special series, host Sally Pfitzer speaks with Dr. Renée Boynton-Jarrett, the founding Director of Vital Village Networks at Boston Medical Center and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine. They discuss the cost of failing to address structural inequities with sustainable and comprehensive policy changes, the vital role community leaders played during the pandemic, and why health care systems need to demonstrate trustworthiness. The next and final episode of this special podcast series will focus on the pandemic’s impact on the mental health system. Subscribe below via your podcast platform of choice to receive all new episodes as soon as they’re released. Speakers Sally Pfitzer, Podcast Host Dr. Renée Boynton-Jarrett, Founding Director of Vital Village Networks at Boston Medical Center and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine Additional Resources Vital Village Networks The Brain Architects Podcast: COVID-19 Special Edition: Creating Communities of Opportunity Thinking About Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Impacts Through a Science-Informed, Early Childhood Lens Early Childhood Adversity, Toxic Stress, and the Impacts of Racism on the Foundations of Health Brief: Moving Upstream: Confronting Racism to Open Up Children’s Potential Infographic: How Racism Can Affect Child Development Re-Envisioning, Not Just Rebuilding: Looking Ahead to a Post-COVID-19 World Working Paper 15: Connecting the Brain to the Rest of the Body: Early Childhood Development and Lifelong Health Are Deeply Intertwined InBrief: Connecting the Brain to the Rest of the Body A Guide to COVID-19 and Early Childhood Development Transcript Sally: Welcome to The Brain Architects, a podcast from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. I’m your host Sally Pfitzer. In March of 2020, we recorded episodes exploring the impact the coronavirus pandemic could have on child development. You may remember we discussed the importance of self-care for caregivers, and the importance of physical distancing, not social distancing.  And now a year later, we wanted to continue those conversations and discuss what we’ve learned, what needs to change, and where we go from here. On today’s podcast, we have Dr. Renée Boynton-Jarrett, who is the founding Director of Vital Village Networks at Boston Medical Center and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine. So good to have you with us, Renée. Dr. Boynton-Jarrett: Delighted to be here. Thank you, Sally. Sally: Renée, in March of 2020, we spoke with Dr. David Williams, who explained that many of the disparities that we saw in the early stages of the pandemic were predictable and the result of longstanding social policies and systemic racism. From your perspective, as an expert in the field, in the past year, what have we learned about these disparities? Dr. Boynton-Jarrett: I think what Dr. Williams shared is absolutely correct. What we saw happen with the COVID-19 pandemic is it took advantage of the existing inequities and just widened those. So actually, our existing structural racism created a broader opportunity for the pandemic to disparately impact the lives, the well-being, and the health of communities of color and communities that are disproportionately impacted by structural racism. And so, I think one of the things that we have learned or relearned is the tremendous cost of failing to truly address structural inequities with sustainable and comprehensive policy changes. And as importantly, because we know structural racism is around these interconnected systems and institutions, but there are also these ideologies, mindsets, ways of thinking and being. And if we think about it, those ideologies and mindsets about who’s okay just to remain at risk, to not have the luxury of physical distancing, to not have the luxury of having water to wash hands and do the hygienic practices. We’ve learned that we also have mindsets that truly impact the way in which we view humanity and human dignity and human rights, and that this pandemic has completely taken advantage of the ways in which those mindsets, ideologies, and systems create structures of inequities. Sally: Could you give us some examples of what changes you think need to happen in the field, particularly how communities and neighborhoods could help? Dr. Boynton-Jarrett: Yeah. I think your question actually hits on where I see the biggest opportunity for change. So, one of the things we saw happen over and over during the pandemic is in the absence of plans. Strategic plans and responses are being created in real time, and often those decisions—whether they were decisions being made about how vaccines would roll out, whether they were decisions being made about what economic supports and resources will come to families, or what will happen with early care and education, childcare, school—we saw time and time again decisions being made that were not being made with true engagement. Not just engagement of communities, but engagement of community leadership. So really, in partnership with, in conversation with. Those who were closest to the inequities—experiencing them most directly—were not being engaged or brought to the table. And time and time again, we also saw that the ideas, the wisdom, the strategies that were actually happening within communities were thoughtful, were creative, were real-time responsive. And actually, when we begin to get behind them, we see more protection happening for communities. So, we also saw tremendous community leadership, and in the absence of that leadership, I think that we would have all fared much worse in this pandemic. Sally: Just anecdotally, I’ve seen that even in some of the work we’ve done at the Center too, and often finding that bringing in members of the community actively from the beginning of projects has been the thing that has made those projects so much more successful. Could you tell us more about your work at Vital Village Networks? Dr. Boynton-Jarrett: So, Vital Village Networks is based at Boston Medical Center. We promote child well-being and address structural and systemic inequities and systems of care and education in early childhood by doing a couple of things. We really work around establishing sustainable, authentic, and equitable partnerships between caregivers, parents, and community residents and community-based organizations and cross sector institutions—health care, education, advocacy, social service. In this work, we all really focus on expanding leadership trajectories and pathways for community leaders, and that can be through trainings and certifications and expanded opportunities. But we also really think about how do we work to build capacity and enhance existing community-driven solutions? So, how do we build capacity within a community to promote well-being? And often, that involves helping institutions and organizations within the community work with community leaders in a different way and we use a model called co-design. So, how do we create and design things together? We really work to think about what builds equitable partnerships. What creates a table for truly equitable participation? A lot of approaches to community engagement and community work begin with the deficit lens. They begin with the idea that there’s a problem in the community, and we ...

The devastating toll of the pandemic has underscored the critical importance of connecting what science is telling us to the lived experiences of people and communities. In March of 2020, we recorded episodes exploring the impact the coronavirus pandemic could have on child development. Now, a year later, we wanted to continue these conversations and discuss what we’ve learned, what needs to change, and where we go from here. Contents Podcast Speakers Additional Resources Transcript In the second episode in this 4-part special series, host Sally Pfitzer speaks with Dr. Rahil Briggs, National Director of ZERO TO THREE’s HealthySteps program. They discuss the potential impact of the pandemic on infant and toddler development, how an overstressed pediatric health care system responded, and the importance of overcoming equity challenges and public fears to resume well-child visits. Upcoming episodes of this series will feature expert speakers reflecting on the longstanding social policies and systemic racism that resulted in the pandemic disparately impacting communities of color, and the pandemic’s impact on the mental health system. The experts will discuss how we can take what we learned over the past year and make meaningful changes that will improve outcomes for children and families. Listen to the first episode of this series, where Center Director, Jack P. Shonkoff, M.D. discusses what COVID-19 revealed about the needs of caregivers with young children or during pregnancy. Subscribe below via your podcast platform of choice to receive all new episodes as soon as they’re released. Speakers Sally Pfitzer, Podcast Host Dr. Rahil Briggs,  National Director of ZERO TO THREE’s HealthySteps Program Additional Resources Resources from the Center on the Developing Child Re-Envisioning, Not Just Rebuilding: Looking Ahead to a Post-COVID-19 World The Brain Architects: COVID-19 Special Edition: Self-Care Isn’t Selfish Working Paper 15: Connecting the Brain to the Rest of the Body: Early Childhood Development and Lifelong Health Are Deeply Intertwined InBrief: Connecting the Brain to the Rest of the Body A Guide to COVID-19 and Early Childhood Development Resources recommended by Dr. Rahil Briggs Psychology Today: What Parents of Babies and Toddlers Need Right Now American Academy of Pediatrics: A superhero moment HealthySteps: Caring for Yourself and Young Children During the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Crisis ZERO to THREE: Tips for Families: Coronavirus Rapid Assessment of Pandemic Impact on Development (RAPID) – Early Childhood USA Today: Opening ‘so many doors for families’: COVID-19 underscores the importance of wraparound care for new moms and children Early Childhood Depression May Impact Brain Development in Later Years Brazelton Touchpoints Center ZERO TO THREE: Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood and official DC:0-5 Training for advanced infant and early childhood mental health professionals Transcript Sally: Welcome to The Brain Architects, a podcast from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. I’m your host Sally Pfitzer. In March of 2020, we recorded episodes exploring the impact the coronavirus pandemic could have on child development. You may remember we discussed the importance of self-care for caregivers, and the importance of physical distancing, not social distancing.  And now a year later, we wanted to continue those conversations and discuss what we’ve learned, what needs to change, and where we go from here. Joining us on today’s podcast is Dr. Rahil Briggs, National Director of ZERO TO THREE’s HealthySteps program. Rahil, thanks so much for being here with us today and just for timing, I’m going to jump right into our first question. What can we tell parents and caregivers about the potential effects the pandemic lifestyle changes could have on development, particularly on infants and toddlers? Dr. Briggs: Thank you Sally, and thanks for having me. I know this question is on a lot of people’s minds. We’re a year into this and what’s been the effect? For some of these kids, it’s half of their life that they’ve lived within the COVID pandemic. But for parents of babies and toddlers, I think we mostly have really good news. Because they are learning through serve and return interactions, it doesn’t need to occur in one particular kind of learning environment or even a specific variety of environments for them to continuously be learning. So, parents can rest assured that babies and toddlers who are having that regular interaction with their primary caregivers in loving, supportive, nurturing ways with all sorts of serve and return moments all day long are still learning a lot. So, reading books, singing, playing music, just observing what’s going on around them. We often talk about—you know nobody expects that you’re going to put your life on hold and read 20 books to your kids every hour, but can you just comment on what you’re doing as you’re cooking dinner? Now I’m putting the water in the pot, and now I’m putting the rice in, and let’s watch it boil—and just really narrating or sportscasting that day. I’ll say it again and again and again, you know, it’s about really taking care of oneself—avoiding toxic stress, bringing in mindfulness if you can. And I don’t mean that we all become yogis and meditate every day. That is not realistic right now. We’re trying to juggle 12 different things every minute. It’s about self-care of adults. Self-care is not selfish as we’ve discussed before. Reducing that caregiver stress will reduce baby and toddler stress, and when babies and toddlers are less stressed, they learn better just like us, right? We learn better when we’re less stressed and it’s exactly the same for them. And of course, if there’s one thing we’ve all learned in this last year, it’s that stress can’t be avoided per se, but it’s about regulating. And so, for parents and caregivers it’s about self-regulating or asking for help. And when you do those things, either self-regulate or ask for help, you model really important social-emotional skill that babies will eventually learn through that example. Sally: Rahil, I really appreciate that connection you just made between the health of caregivers and the health of children. I think it’s something that can easily be overlooked, especially with everything going on. And I’m wondering, are there concrete examples of things that caregivers should look out for? Something that might indicate that their child has been negatively impacted by the uncertainty and chaos surrounding the pandemic? Dr. Briggs: Sure, so we know that the difference between a one-year-old and a two-year-old say in developmental terms is pretty remarkable. It’s quite different than the difference between a 33-year-old and a 34-year-old, for example. And so, developmental regression is something that you might look at and you might look for. So, is a child who used to be toilet-trained now going back to having accidents or asking for diapers? Or a child who used to be, you know, fully weaned from a bottle, or breastfeeding or a pacifier, suddenly going back in that direction? Those can be signs of them just saying like “Hey, this is all a bit overwhelming for me right now and I want to go back to a place where things are a little bit easier, and I get a lot more soothing and a lot more care.” From some of the wonderful work of people like Joan Luby and others, ...

The devastating toll of the pandemic has underscored the critical importance of connecting what science is telling us to the lived experiences of people and communities. In March of 2020, we recorded episodes exploring the impact the coronavirus pandemic could have on child development. Now, a year later, we wanted to continue these conversations and discuss what we’ve learned, what needs to change, and where we go from here. Contents Podcast Speakers Additional Resources Transcript The first guest in this 4-part special series is Center Director Jack P. Shonkoff, M.D. He and host Sally Pfitzer discuss what COVID-19 revealed about the needs of caregivers with young children or during pregnancy, what we learned about the importance of science over the course of the pandemic, and how we can make changes going forward. Upcoming episodes of this series will feature expert speakers reflecting on the pandemic’s impact on pediatric and mental health systems, and the longstanding social policies and systemic racism that resulted in the pandemic disparately impacting communities of color. The experts will discuss how we can take what we learned over the past year and make meaningful changes that will improve outcomes for children and families. Subscribe below via your podcast platform of choice to receive all new episodes as soon as they’re released. Speakers Sally Pfitzer, Podcast Host Dr. Jack Shonkoff, Center Director Additional Resources Resources from the Center on the Developing Child Re-Envisioning, Not Just Rebuilding: Looking Ahead to a Post-COVID-19 World The Brain Architects: COVID-19 Special Edition: A Different World Working Paper 15: Connecting the Brain to the Rest of the Body: Early Childhood Development and Lifelong Health Are Deeply Intertwined InBrief: Connecting the Brain to the Rest of the Body Health and Learning Are Deeply Interconnected in the Body: An Action Guide for Policymakers What Is Inflammation? And Why Does it Matter for Child Development? How Racism Can Affect Child Development Moving Upstream: Confronting Racism to Open Up Children’s Potential A Guide to COVID-19 and Early Childhood Development Transcript Sally: Welcome to The Brain Architects, a podcast from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. I’m your host Sally Pfitzer. In March of 2020, we recorded episodes exploring the impact the coronavirus pandemic could have on child development. You may remember we discussed the importance of self-care for caregivers, and the importance of physical distancing, not social distancing.  And now a year later, we wanted to continue those conversations and discuss what we’ve learned, what needs to change, and where we go from here. Joining us today is Dr. Jack Shonkoff, Director of the Center on the Developing Child. Jack, we really appreciate you being here, and I know we have a lot to cover, so let’s jump right in. Could you tell us what COVID-19 has revealed about the needs of young children, families and people who are pregnant? Dr. Shonkoff: So immediately, we saw the difference between people who had access to resources that helped them get through and those who before the pandemic were always at the edge and that this put families over the edge in terms of meeting basic needs—food, clothing, housing.  But then, there’s the other universal experience of the critical importance of supportive relationships—the critical importance of extended family, neighbors, friends—and the extent to which every parent, regardless of your circumstances, cannot parent a child alone. And the social isolation that so many people felt, from the poorest to the wealthiest. And so, I think if there’s anything good to take out of this past year, it’s a recognition of the universal needs that all families have to provide a healthy environment for their children, but the tremendous inequalities in resources and buffers and supports that we could all turn to when we are faced with really unusual hardships.  So, it’s this balance between kind of universal experience and highly unequal consequences that I think are the lessons from the past year. Sally: Could you tell us what we’ve learned about science over the course of this pandemic? And especially, how that science relates to what children need. Dr. Shonkoff: Our work has been deeply grounded in the importance and the value of bringing credible, trusted, scientific knowledge to the table in addressing all of the challenges and opportunities that face families with young children, especially families who are dealing with excessive adversity or burdens. And this past year, has been a real eye-opening experience I think for all of us about both the critical importance of trusted, credible science in the face of threats to our health and well-being and the very significant  limitations on how that science can provide direction or guidance about how to move forward. We certainly learned this past year, not only that science doesn’t always have all of the answers—and especially at the beginning of problem—but that science doesn’t stand still, and that we depend upon science to keep moving forward. And we also have to learn how to make decisions based on incomplete science and based on the best science we have. And in many ways, we’ve always known that. We know that there aren’t answers to every problem.  But I think one of the really very complex and and sobering lessons we learned this past year is how science has to be aligned with the lived experiences and the values and beliefs of the population. Because when it isn’t aligned, people can choose to not only not believe in the science, but to adopt alternative perspectives that try to delegitimize science. So, for me personally, and certainly for the work of our center, this is a real time to just step back and try to figure out how we can maximize the contributions of science and we can leverage cutting-edge science that has solutions—or partial solutions—to our problem, without expecting that science will have all the answers. And certainly, for those of us at the  Center on the Developing  Child, kind of recognize both the limitations of the science at any time and the power of the science to guide us in more effective approaches to deal with any of the challenges we’re facing. Sally: Looking forward, what can we do? How can we make changes? Dr. Shonkoff: We’ve all learned a lot about how much the health of any society depends upon a sense of shared responsibility for each other. To get through this together. Whether it be people caring about their communities, decision leaders caring about the well-being of the country. I think we’ve learned simultaneously that we are all in this together and we all have shared vested interests and we are not all in this with equal resources and equal assets.  And this has not just been about the pandemic. We have had the converging crises of an infection out of control,  of a massive economic disruption that did not have an equal impact on all parts of the population, and then, of course, we have the dramatically increased consciousness  about something that is not a new problem, but the dramatic increase in understanding the unbelievable threat and hardship of systemic racism and structural inequities imposes on families of color and other groups that are disadvantaged in ways that are kind of embedded in our society. So going forward, I think the health of our society depends upon the extent to which we see all of us as having a shared investment in the well-being of each other. So, this is still politically extraordinarily complicated, but I think one lesson we might take from this is shared interest  in everybody doing well.  We do know a lot about the kinds of conditions in which young children grow up that increase the likelihood of a healthy, productive outcome: supportive relationships, manageable levels of stress, basic needs met, major opportunities for learning, and buffering and protection from excessive stress activation. So what do we do going forward?  We start with the fact that in a society like ours with our political traditions, there’s a mix of self-reliance and kind of shared responsibility. And no family gets by by itself. So, the question is: Do you pay for it y...

How do we use the science of early childhood development to implement practical strategies and overcome longstanding barriers in the early childhood field? How can we ensure that families’ voices are heard when we create policies or programs? Contents Podcast Panelists Additional Resources Transcript To kick off this episode, Center Director Dr. Jack Shonkoff describes what the science means for policymakers, system leaders, care providers, and caregivers. This is followed by a discussion among a distinguished panel of experts, including Cindy Mann (Manatt Health), Dr. Aaliyah Samuel (Northwest Evaluation Association), and Jane Witowski (Help Me Grow). The panelists discuss how we can break down the silos in the early childhood field, policies affecting prenatal-three, and how policies can change to address the stressors inflicted by poverty, community violence, and racism. Panelists Cindy Mann Dr. Aaliyah Samuel Jane Witowski Additional Resources Resources from the Center on the Developing Child The Brain Architects: Connecting Health & Learning Part I: The Science Working Paper 15: Connecting the Brain to the Rest of the Body: Early Childhood Development and Lifelong Health Are Deeply Intertwined InBrief: Connecting the Brain to the Rest of the Body Health and Learning Are Deeply Interconnected in the Body: An Action Guide for Policymakers What Is Inflammation? And Why Does it Matter for Child Development? How Racism Can Affect Child Development Resources from the Panelists Testing America’s Freedom Podcast Help Me Grow National Center Transcript Sally: Welcome to the Brain Architects, a podcast from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. I’m your host, Sally Pfitzer. Our Center believes that advances in science can provide a powerful source of new ideas that can improve outcomes for children and families. We want to help you apply the science of early childhood development to your everyday interactions with children and take what you’re hearing from our experts and panels and apply it to your everyday work.  Today, we’ll discuss how the science we shared in our previous episode, on the early years and lifelong health, can change the way we think about early childhood policy and practice, and what this shift means for policymakers, practitioners, and caregivers. So, I’d like to welcome back Dr. Jack Shonkoff, Professor of Child Health and Development and the Director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. Hi, Jack. Welcome back.  Jack: Hey, Sally.  Sally:  So we talked in the last episode about how the brain is connected to the rest of the body, and especially how the early years really matter when it comes to lifelong health. What does this science mean for policymakers, system leaders, or even caregivers?  Jack: That’s a really important question, Sally. From the beginning of the early childhood field, it’s always been focused on early learning and improving children’s readiness to succeed in school. In the policy world, it’s in education policy, comes out of the education budget. For people who work in early childhood programs, and for parents, it’s about programs that encourage and provide rich learning opportunities for children to develop early literacy competencies.  But the mindset shift here is that it’s not just about early learning in school—it‘s about the foundations of physical and mental health. It’s not just about improving outcomes for greater economic productivity—better educational achievement. It’s also about decreasing the likelihood that you’ll develop heart disease or hypertension, or diabetes, or a wide range of the most common chronic illnesses in society. It’s not just a matter of return on investment—asking “So, how much more economically productive will the population be? How much will we save in incarceration?” It’s also how much will we save in the cost of health care.  Sally: We’ve previously discussed the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the national reckoning regarding systemic racism, and the impact that this current climate has on children and families. Could you talk about how both of those issues are playing out in the context of policy and systems change?  Jack: From a science point of view, disparities in health outcomes is not a new discovery. But from a public understanding point of view, the COVID-19 epidemic and its gross inequalities in exposure and in infection and in complications and in deaths has really put front and center the incredibly important impact of systemic racism and interpersonal discrimination as it affects health. We know that more people of color, particularly African Americans—but also Latino and Indigenous populations—have greater exposure to the infection because of working in jobs that cannot be done at home, more reliance on public transportation, tighter housing circumstances—all of which make it more difficult to be protected from exposure to the infection.   But what’s getting less attention is not just rates of exposure and infection, but also rates of complications. We do know that of those people who are infected, people with underlying medical conditions are more likely to be sicker, and in many cases, more likely to die from the infection. And those underlying conditions are not equally distributed across the population. And they are particularly a higher prevalence in populations of color and in people who have grown up in poverty.  And here, what this new science is telling us is: this is not about adult exposure. These diseases have their roots early in childhood. They have their origins in excessive stress activation—excessive adversity—related to poverty, related to racism, related to exposure to violence, related to unstable housing, and related to food insecurity, all of which present tremendous burdens for families raising young children that increase the risk for excessive stress activation, which early on in life—doesn‘t always affect—but can affect brain development, the development of the immune system, development of metabolic systems.   On the one hand, the impacts of racism belong on the list of a lot of other sources of stress for families. But on the other hand, there are burdens and hardships that are unique to experiencing racism that we have to start to come to grips with in a very different way.  If we don’t protect children from that, if we don’t provide the support for families to be able to help protect their children from the stresses in the environments in which they live, then what we see is over time, not only influences on early learning affecting readiness to succeed in school, but greater likelihood to have many of these chronic diseases later in life. And this is a rude awakening and an opportunity for the early childhood field to focus much more not just on early learning and school readiness, but to focus on the early origins of lifelong health problems, both physically and mentally.  Sally: I completely agree with that Jack. And I’d also say that it’s so important that people at the policy and systems level work directly with families who are experiencing these stressors just to make sure they really understand their perspectives and their needs. And up next, Jack’s going to answer a question that’s been submitted by one of our listeners.   Musical interlude  Sally: And we’re back! For this segment, we asked audience members who listened to the podcast to send in any questions they may have for Jack. Today’s question involves the role of significant stress on our abilities to use core life skills—the skills that help us manage information, make decisions, and plan ahead to make healthier long-term choices or avoid impulsive risks, reduce stress, and ultimately improve health. Today’s question comes from a listener named Abbi Wright.  Abbi: My name is Abbi Wright, and I’m a first–year graduate student at Oklahoma State University studying speech language pathology. And my question for Dr. Shonkoff is: how does strengthening core life skills in children affect lifelong health? How can we strengthen those skills in families that are especially vulnerable because of immigration status or racism?  Jack: So that’s a really important question, ...

How do our biological systems work together to respond to chronic stress? What do these responses mean for early learning and lifelong health? And when we say that early experiences matter, what do we mean by early? In this episode of "The Brain Architects" podcast, Center Director Dr. Jack Shonkoff describes the body's stress response system, how our biological systems act as a team when responding to chronic stress, and the effects chronic stress can have on lifelong health. This is followed by a discussion among a panel of scientists including Dr. Nicki Bush (University of California-San Francisco),  Dr. Damien Fair (University of Minnesota),  and Dr. Fernando Martinez (University of Arizona). The panelists discuss how our bodies respond to adversity, inflammation's role in the stress response system, the effects of stress during the prenatal period and first few years after birth, and how we can use this science to prevent long-term impacts on our health. Download and subscribe now!

While some countries and U.S. states are beginning to reopen businesses and other gathering places, the pandemic is still very much with us. Physical distancing will likely be a way of life until a vaccine for COVID-19 is widely available. So much change, including the threat of illness, and grief of those who have lost loved ones, means that mental health is a great concern. Fortunately, there are things we can do to support our mental health at this time, especially when caring for young children or other family members. In this episode of The Brain Architects, host Sally Pfitzer speaks with Dr. Karestan Koenen, Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Dr. Archana Basu, Research Associate at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and a clinical psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. They discuss what supporting your own mental health can look like, as well as ways to support children you care for at this time. They also talk about what mental health professionals all over the world are doing to help take care of our societies in the midst of the pandemic, and how they’re preparing for the challenges that come next. Speakers Sally Pfitzer, Podcast Host Dr. Archana Basu, Research Associate, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and clinical psychologist, Massachusetts General Hospital Dr. Karestan Koenen, Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Additional Resources International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies: Self-Care for Providers International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies: Vicarious Trauma Toolkit Massachusetts General Hospital: How to Talk to Your Children About the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Massachusetts General Hospital: Parenting At a Challenging Time: Supporting children facing the illness/ loss of a loved one Massachusetts General Hospital: Psychiatry guide to Mental Health Resources for COVID-19 National Child Traumatic Stress Network pandemic resources SAMHSA Disaster Distress 24/7 Helpline: 1-800-985-5990 or text ‘TalkWithUs’ to 66746 Transcript Sally: Welcome to The Brain Architects, a podcast from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. I’m your host, Sally Pfitzer. Since our last podcast series was released, things have changed drastically as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. During this unprecedented time, we’d like to share resources and provide guidance that you may find helpful. So, we are creating a series of podcast episodes that address COVID-19 and child development. This episode is the fifth in our series, and todays guests are Dr. Karestan Koenen, Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Dr. Archana Basu, Research Associate at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Clinical Psychologist and Massachusetts General Hospital. Thank you both for being here I’m really looking forward to the conversation. Dr. Koenen: Thank you Sally. It’s great to be here. Dr. Basu: Thank you so much. Sally: So Karestan, what makes this pandemic different from other traumatic events that many people have experienced in terms of mental health? Dr. Koenen: There are a number of characteristics that make the COVID-19 pandemic different than other traumatic events, even than other disasters. I actually lived in New York City during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and I’ve seen some similarities in terms of this in that things were shut down, there was a pervasive feeling of threat, there was loss of life, and it was very disruptive and it was something that people really – in New York, anyway – talked about for a long time. It persisted and affected everyone in the city. What’s different about this is the length of time people are being affected, how pervasive it is in terms of our community but the state, nationally, and globally it’s the first time that I’ve had experienced a traumatic event that my colleagues in Africa are experiencing some version of it, my colleagues in Mexico, and then I think because it affects so many different aspects of our lives. We talk about trauma, and we think of things that are unpredictable and uncontrollable and overwhelm our ability to cope. This has certainly been unpredictable; a lot of things feel out of our control and on top of that we have other things that can in themselves be traumatic like unexpected bereavement, job loss, a stigma people are experiencing. I think the sheer pervasiveness of it – how it’s affected every aspect of our life. Finally, I think one of the things we know about disasters is that social support is so important for resilience, for people’s recovery, and to buffer them from the effects of disaster. In the middle of this, we’re being told to physically distance to prevent the spread of COVID, and that really cuts into our ability to get social support or to socially support each other, so that is something certainly different than I’ve experienced before or anything I’ve studied actually. Sally: So Archana, I know you work with children and families on all of these issues around grief, which I know we were just kind of referencing. I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit more about the different kinds of grief that families might be experiencing at this time. Dr. Basu: I guess I’d like to start by acknowledging that loss is a very common part of human experience, even outside of the pandemic. As an example, in the U.S. each year more than 600,000 people die of heart disease alone. This is not to minimize the losses that we’re experiencing now, but only to say that we as humans are used to experiencing losses and adapt to it on a pretty ongoing basis, and there’s a large body of evidence to suggest that we are adaptive and resilient. This is especially true for children because child development inherently offers many opportunities for change and positive adaptation with appropriate support. That being said, as Karestan highlighted, there are many unique elements to the pandemic in terms of the pervasiveness and the unpredictability as well as the limited or lack of access to typical support systems or resources, for instance due to physical distancing requirements. That certainly makes it unique and challenging. As of today, more than 80,000 fatalities have been reported in the U.S. alone. Families are certainly worried about their own health, their loved one’s health and well-being, or are coping with a death of a loved one. Right now, with travel restrictions, not being able to come together as families or with friends, that’s definitely a pretty big challenge. Many families have been unable to engage in typical funeral rituals, and parents are wondering how to support kids, and some are even wondering whether to say something. Generally, the research supports the idea that open age-appropriate communication can be very valuable in helping children. There are some specific helpful resources; really practical tips in terms of what language or words parents can use to explore how their kids are understanding these experiences, what worries they might have, and we can certainly provide links to that in perhaps the website to our podcast. Briefly, I will just say that open communication really helps to understand what children are observing and experiencing and can help them not be alone in their worries. I would say that would be the number one goal is to help children recognize what they’re feeling, validate those emotions, and for them to feel that they are not alone in this experience. The other element is what you referred to in your question is outside of bereavement, all of us are experiencing losses in our everyday lives. I think one way in which we support each other through tough times is by reaching out and connecting with our friends and family, by holding hands, by giving each other a hug, and we can’t do that right now. Also, I’ve been hearing from younger adults graduating; seniors in college, that they’re experiencing a pretty tremendous sense of loss around routine rituals that form a sense of community like graduation ceremonies. They don’t have that sort of eager anticipation as they’re launching into adulthood. Overall, I guess I would say children can be resilient, but the way forward may not always look and feel that easy. They’ll be moments of frustration and confusion. We would expect that – there is nothing normal about what we are experiencing, so to acknowledge and validate even these everyday experiences of loss would be quite valuable in supporting kids and families. Sally: I’ve been thinking so much about how so many different people that I know have been experiencing this grief in different ways. You think, “Those high school students – that’s so hard”, or you think, “Oh, those college students – that’s so hard.” There’s so many different traditions and cultural pieces that we are missing right now, and that just changes how we are in our society. Karestan, I’m wondering if you could provide some specific examples; our listeners have often found it helpful to have some concrete ideas about how mental health experts are supporting families now, and then also ...

Shelter-in-place orders are meant to help protect our communities from the current coronavirus pandemic. But for some people, home isn’t always a safe place. For those who are experiencing domestic violence, or believe they know someone one who is, what options are available to stay both physically healthy and safe from violence? In this fourth episode of our COVID-19 series of The Brain Architects, host Sally Pfitzer speaks with Dr. Tien Ung, Program Director for Impact and Learning at FUTURES without Violence. Prior to her work at FUTURES, Tien spent five years as the Director of Leadership and Programs at the Center on the Developing Child. Tien discusses important, practical steps those at home can take to keep themselves and their children safe, as well as strategies others can use if they think someone they know may be experiencing domestic violence. She also addresses the resilience of survivors, and what our communities can do both during and after COVID to listen to and engage in real responsive relationships with adults and children alike. The next episode of this special podcast series will focus on the mental health implications of a global pandemic. Subscribe below via your podcast platform of choice to receive it as soon as it’s released. A note on this episode: If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, you can contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or the National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). Speakers Sally Pfitzer, Podcast Host Dr. Tien Ung, Program Director, Impact and Learning, FUTURES without Violence Additional Resources Hotlines For a list of state/territory/tribal domestic violence coalitions, please visit:https://ncadv.org/state-coalitions. Anti-Violence Project (LGBTQ) Hotline: 1-212-714-1141 Casa de Esperanza: https://casadeesperanza.org/ — 1-651-772-1611 ChildHelp National Child Abuse Hotline: https://www.childhelp.org/ — 1-800-4A CHILD (422-4453) Crisis Text Line: https://www.crisistextline.org/ — Text home to 741741 Love Is Respect: https://www.loveisrespect.org/ — 1-866-331-9474 National Domestic Violence Hotline: https://www.thehotline.org — 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) National Sexual Assault Hotline: https://www.rainn.org/ — 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ — 1-800-273-8255 StrongHearts Native Helpline: https://www.strongheartshelpline.org/ — 1-844-7NATIVE (762-8483) The Northwest Network: https://www.nwnetwork.org/ The Trevor Project: https://www.thetrevorproject.org/ — 1-866-488-7386 Tools and Guides “Caring Relationships, Healthy You” safety card: https://store.futureswithoutviolence.org/index.php/product/caring-relationships-lgbq-safety-card/ Changing Minds – Preventing and healing childhood trauma: https://changingmindsnow.org Coaching Boys Into Men: https://www.coachescorner.org Educate Health Professionals on How to Respond to Domestic Violence: https://ipvhealth.org/health-professionals/educate-providers/ “Hanging Out or Hooking Up” safety card: https://www.futureswithoutviolence.org/hanging-out-or-hooking-up-teen-safety-card/ Promising Futures: Best Practices for Serving Children, Youth and Parents Experiencing Domestic Violence: http://promising.futureswithoutviolence.org Ways to help children and adults living with violence: https://www.futureswithoutviolence.org/wp-content/uploads/Futures_Resources-updated.pdf Transcript Sally: Welcome to The Brain Architects, a podcast from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. I’m your host, Sally Pfitzer. Since our last podcast series was released, things have changed drastically as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. During this unprecedented time, we’d like to share resources and provide guidance that you may find helpful. So, we are creating a series of podcast episodes that address COVID-19 and child development. A quick word about today’s episode: as you’ve probably guessed from the title, we’ll be discussing the subject of domestic violence, including mentions of sexual violence and abuse. We just want to give a heads up to those who may be sensitive to this subject matter so you can make an informed decision about whether this topic is right for you at this time. If you or someone you know may be experiencing domestic violence, you can contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE, that’s 1-800-799-7233, or the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE, that’s 1-800-656-4673. This podcast is the fourth in our series, and our guest today is Dr. Tien Ung, Program Director of Impact and Learning at FUTURES Without Violence. Prior to her work at FUTURES, Tien spent 5 years as the Director of Leadership and Programs here at the Center on the Developing Child. Thank you so much for being here with us today Tien, we’re really glad to have you. Dr. Ung: Thank you, Sally. I’m glad to be back here to talk with you all about this. Sally: Just so our listeners know, we’re recording this podcast today on a video call, so the sound quality may be different from what you’re used to hearing when we typically record this podcast in the studio. I’m going to start us with this first question. Tien, what are you seeing and hearing from your local partners, law enforcement, and families about indicators of domestic violence since stay at home orders started? Dr. Ung: Sheltering in place does present very unique circumstances and challenges for people who are not safe at home. We know for example, that 1 in 4 women experience violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. We know that 2 out of 3 children are exposed to trauma and violence. We know recently from the Rape, Assault & Incest National Network that for the first time in 25 years, their national hotline is receiving calls from minors, such that more than half of their calls coming in over the last couple of months have been from minors. We also know that at this time, reports of abuse and neglects against children are dropping. We know at least in Massachusetts, and I suspect in other states across the U.S. as well, that 80% of reports that come in from mandated reporters about child abuse and neglect are coming in from health professionals, educators, first responders, people who do not have eyes and ears on what’s happening behind closed doors at home right now. We also know very recently that phone calls to police stations across the nation are rising in response to domestic disputes. I think in fact, just today, we learned that a mass shooting in Canada had roots in domestic violence, which highlights, actually, what we’ve known for quite some time, that there is a strong correlation between domestic violence and mass shootings. Current stay in place orders present very specific challenges to people who are not safe at home. There’s also good news. While it is true that communities of care serve as an organic system of surveillance and monitoring bringing attention to harm that’s being done behind closed doors, we also know that those same communities serve as protective factors for children and victims of family violence and domestic violence. Faith communities, social communities, health and medical communities, as well as human service and educational communities, and legal and judicial communities—they all come together under normal circumstances to create a system and an ecology of care and protection. Those are things that I think will be important for us to unpack a little bit on the call today. Sally: This is obviously a really challenging time, and if someone is experiencing domestic violence and they are a parent, what might they be able to do to escape that given we are in the shelter in place? Dr. Ung: Because parents don’t have access to their normal pathways for connections, it really is very hard for them to reach out and get the help and support they need. It goes back to basic safety planning; things like making sure survivors know to put their hair in a bun rather than in a ponytail, because when your hair is in a ponytail there is more to grab onto which can cause injury. Making sure they are scanning their environments and looking for places to shelter in place in their homes where there’s not easy access to knives, for example, so don’t run into the kitchen. Doing a quick scan to see what they can use as shields or whatnot to protect themselves and reduce the likelihood of serious injury if a fight does breakout. We’re really back to basics, Sally, which is hard to believe...

While the current coronavirus pandemic is affecting all of us, it isn’t affecting all of us equally. Some communities—especially communities of color—are feeling the brunt of the virus more than others, in terms of higher rates of infection as well as economic fallout, among many other ways. In this third special COVID-19 episode of The Brain Architects podcast, host Sally Pfitzer is joined by Dr. David Williams, the Florence Sprague Norman and Laura Smart Norman Professor of Public Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Williams discusses ways in which the coronavirus pandemic is particularly affecting people of color in the U.S., and what that can mean for early childhood development. He also pinpoints the importance of creating “communities of opportunity” that will allow all families to thrive—both during and after this pandemic. Upcoming episodes of this special podcast series will focus on domestic violence, and the mental health implications of a global pandemic. Subscribe below via your podcast platform of choice to receive all new episodes as soon as they’re released. Speakers Sally Pfitzer, Podcast Host Dr. David Williams, Florence Sprague Norman and Laura Smart Norman Professor of Public Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Additional Resources Harvard Scholar: David R. Williams Social and Behavioral Determinants of Toxic Stress Transcript Sally: Welcome to The Brain Architects, a podcast from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. I’m your host, Sally Pfitzer. Since our last podcast series was released, things have changed drastically as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. During this unprecedented time, we’d like to share resources and provide guidance that you may find helpful. So, we are creating a series of podcast episodes that address COVID-19 and child development. This episode is the third in our series, and our guest today is Dr. David Williams, the Florence Sprague Norman and Laura Smart Norman Professor of Public Health – Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Professor of African and African American Studies -Harvard Faculty Arts & Sciences. Thanks for being with us today, Dr. Williams. Dr. Williams: Thank you, it’s good for me to be here with you. Sally: Just so our listeners know, we’re recording this podcast today on a video call, so the sound quality may be different from what you’re used to hearing when we typically record this podcast in the studio. So, the data that’s coming out now that we’ve been seeing continue to reinforce the research that you have been doing for many years around racial disparities, and we’re seeing that this virus is disproportionately effecting people of color. What are you seeing now in terms of the data? Dr. Williams: We are seeing in multiple states more than half of all deaths from the Coronavirus are African American, and in virtually every state the percent of deaths of African Americans who die from the Coronavirus exceeds—it’s larger than the percent of African Americans in the population in that state. So, there is a disproportionate negative impact on African Americans in New York City, and we see a similar pattern for Hispanics. I think the important point I would like to make at the onset is that first, this is not a surprise. Two, this reflects a longstanding pattern, not just for Coronavirus but for virtually all of the leading causes of death. And that this pattern does not reflect failures on the part of the individuals, the families, and the communities that experience such disproportionate losses. Sally: I think a lot of times when we’re hearing about this data coming out, there is a missing component where people are hearing this is disproportionately affecting communities of color, but there is not a lot of talking happening right now around the ‘Why?’. Could you share a little bit more about what the underlying causes of this disproportionate impact actually are? Dr. Williams: Sure. Before we talk about underlying causes, I think it’s also important to emphasize that when we see one group in our society disproportionately affected, it affects all of us. It is about all of us. We are all connected. Higher rates of death for one population effects the entire profile and the entire risk for all of the population. In terms of what are the causes of these patterns? We’ve known for a long time many of the culprits. Number one I would mention is lower income, lower education, lower occupational status. In virtually every country of the world, persons of lower levels of education and income have higher rates of disease and death than those who are better off than they are. And when we say race and ethnicity in the United States, we are talking about groups that really vary dramatically in economic resources. I’ll give you two numbers that makes this very concrete. If you look at the latest income data for the United States, published in 2019 by the U.S Census Bureau1, we find that for every dollar of household income White households receive, African American households receive .59 cents. That .59 cents to the dollar figure is identical to the racial gap in income in 1978. Most of my students think we have made a lot more progress than that. As bad as the income gap is, it dramatically understates racial differences in access to economic resources. Because income captures a flow of resources into the household, it tells us nothing about the economic reserves that households have to cushion short falls of income. We get that from data on wealth. The latest report from the Federal Reserve Board indicates that for every dollar of wealth White households have, African American households have .10 cents, and Latino households have .12 cents.2 So, we are looking at groups that are disproportionately, economically disadvantaged; number one. And in multiple ways that raises the health problems and challenges that they will face. COVID-19 really illustrates this phenomenon very powerfully. What we know is that minorities have early onset of disease, early onset of chronic conditions, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, all occur at younger ages. Part of this is driven by the lower economic status and higher levels of stress. Also, persons of color disproportionately in jobs where they have to go to work in order to get paid. We are working in jobs that don’t provide benefits, often don’t provide healthcare benefits, which lowers access to medical care. In New York City, for example, the hardest hit area of the pandemic, 60% of the essential workers in New York City are persons of color.3 Research also documents that in disadvantage communities, even if you get access to primary medical care, many of those primary care providers do not have admitting privileges at the best academically based or private health care systems where the best specialists are, so that those populations are also limited in the access to quality care. More generally, there is at least one study since the COVID-19 epidemic has begun that looked at a data from multiple states and that reported for testing for COVID-19 that African Americans, with the same symptoms as whites, showing up requesting a test were less likely to get the test.4 We also have evidence of the persistence of discrimination in terms of access to tests in addition to the fact that most of the testing sites are in suburban communities and there are fewer testing sites in central city communities that have a larger unrepresentative minority population. COVID-19 is a perfect storm in terms of having a disproportionate negative impact on disadvantaged populations in the United States. Sally: A lot of what you’re describing reminds me of that saying, “a person’s zip code has more to do with their health outcomes than their genetic code does.” What does that mean and how does that relate to this current situation? Dr. Williams: I think it’s important to recognize that challenges these communities face are long standing and it didn’t happen by chance – they are not random events. They actually reflect the successful implementations of social policies. We had social policies implemented in the United States, but residential racial segregation being one of the most profound of them in terms of its far reached negative effects that still persist today that restricted a way a person lives based on race or ethnicity. That has had a dramatic effect in reducing access to opportunities – opportunities in early childcare and good early childcare environments. Access to good early education, access to employment opportunities. Opportunity in terms of the quality of neighborhood and housing environments and whether it’s easy or difficult to get exercise safely in your neighborhood. Whether it’s easy or difficult to have access to good primary care in your neighborhood. Across a broad range of factors that drive opportunity and success and society, we have large segments of our population restricted by these historic inequities. Just to illustrate how powerful some of these effects are; a national study led by Harvard economists showed that if we could eliminate residential segregation in the United States overnight, we would completely eliminate or erase black and white differences in income, in education, and in unemployment, and reduce the black white differences in single motherhood by two-thirds.5 All of those d...

In the midst of a global pandemic, pediatricians are serving a unique role. While the coronavirus is generally showing milder effects on babies and children than on adults, there are still health concerns and considerations for infants in need of scheduled vaccinations, and kids who are home all day with parents who may be facing stressful situations. In the second episode of our special COVID-19 series of The Brain Architects, host Sally Pfitzer speaks with Dr. Rahil Briggs, National Director of ZERO TO THREE's HealthySteps program, to discuss how pediatricians are serving their patients during the pandemic, including using telehealth; why caregiver health is child health; and what she hopes the healthcare system can learn as a result of the pandemic. Upcoming episodes will focus on racial disparities in the effects of the virus, and domestic violence. Subscribe below via your podcast platform of choice to receive all new episodes as soon as they’re released. Speakers Sally Pfitzer, Podcast Host Dr. Rahil Briggs, National Director of ZERO TO THREE's HealthySteps Program Additional Resources Erikson Institute’s Fussy Baby Network: free phone consultations Healthy Steps: Caring for Yourself and Young Children During the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Crisis ZERO to THREE: Tips for Families: Coronavirus Transcript Sally: Welcome to The Brain Architects, a podcast from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. I’m your host, Sally Pfitzer. Since our last podcast series was released, things have changed drastically as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. During this unprecedented time, we’d like to share resources and provide guidance that you may find helpful. So, we are creating a series of podcast episodes that address COVID-19 and child development. This episode is the second in our series, and our guest today is Dr. Rahil Briggs, the National Director of ZERO TO THREE’s HealthySteps Program. Good morning, Rahil. Rahil: Good morning, Sally. Sally: And just so our listeners know, we’re recording this podcast today on a video call, so the sound quality may be different from what you’re used to hearing when we typically record this podcast in the studio. Rahil, what are you starting to see out in the field with pediatric practices effected by this virus, particularly in the HealthySteps locations, and how are the pediatricians starting to respond to the Coronavirus situation? Rahil: Sure, thanks Sally. It’s an excellent question and honestly, depending on when listeners are catching this it may have already changed by now. The American Academy of Pediatrics is really our guide star for figuring out what’s going on and what they’re recommending, but a couple of facts on the ground really remain the same. That pediatric primary care is the main system we have for reaching young children. In a normal time, whatever that was and may be in the future, pediatric primary care reaches nearly all young children in our country. Right now, the American Academy of Pediatrics in recognition of the importance of vaccinations, and in recognition of the importance of really high quality newborn pediatric care continues to recommend actually, that families bring newborns, and bring infants and toddlers who need vaccinations into the primary care practice. So, that is pretty extraordinary and speaks to the importance of those services even with the Coronavirus swirling around. As you know, there are about 12-13 well child visits in those first three years. 7 of them occur in the first year of life, and a big chunk occur in that newborn period where they are checking everything from the bilirubin levels to maybe redoing the newborn blood stick to the weight gain and all these really critical pieces.

While the coronavirus pandemic has changed many things around the world, it has not stopped child development. In this series of special episodes of The Brain Architects podcast, we aim to share helpful resources and ideas in support of all those who a...

What is "serve and return"? What does it mean to have a "responsive relationship" with a child? How do responsive relationships support healthy brain development? And what can parents and caregivers do in their day-to-day lives to build these sorts of relationships? Fortunately, there are many quick, easy, and free ways to create responsive relationships with children of any age. In this episode of "The Brain Architects" podcast, Center Director Dr. Jack Shonkoff describes the science behind how these interactions—known as "serve and return"—work. This is followed by a discussion among a panel of scientists and practitioners including Dr. Phil Fisher, the Philip H. Knight Chair and Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon, and director of the Center for Translational Neuroscience; Patricia Marinho, founder and CEO of Tempojunto and co-founder of Programa BEM; and Sarah Ryan, director of Life Skills at Julie's Family Learning Program. The panelists discuss what it looks like to serve and return with children on a daily basis, and how to encourage these interactions. Download and subscribe now!

What is toxic stress? What effects can it have on a child's body and development, and how can those effects be prevented? What does it mean to be resilient in the face of toxic stress? This episode of The Brain Architects explores what toxic stress means, and what we can do to counteract its effects. Host Sally Pfitzer is once again joined by Center Director Dr. Jack Shonkoff as they dive into the different types of stress, including what makes certain stress "toxic," while other stress can be tolerable or even positive for children. They discuss the effects that toxic stress can have on developing brains, as well as what it means to be resilient to sources of stress, and how parents and caregivers can help encourage that resilience in children. Dr. Shonkoff also emphasizes the point that, even for those who may have experienced toxic stress, "it's never too late to make things better." Then, listen to a panel discussion featuring Pediatrician Dr. Kathleen Conroy, Community Mental Health Worker Cerella Craig, Professor and Researcher Dr. Megan Gunnar, and Training Director for Rise Magazine Jeanette Vega, as they discuss the various ways in which they encounter toxic stress and its effects in their work. The panelists speak openly about how toxic stress can affect families and children—including ways in which the systems set up to help can be the cause of further stress—and how to talk about toxic stress in a way that doesn't make things feel hopeless to those who have experienced it. They also dig into strategies they employ in their various fields to help children and families deal with stress, and move what might be toxic stress back to tolerable levels. Download the episode and subscribe to the podcast today.

Why are the early years of a child's life so important for brain development? How are connections built in the brain, and how can early brain development affect a child's future health? This episode of The Brain Architects dives into all these questions and more. First, Dr. Jack Shonkoff, director of the Center on the Developing Child, explains more about the science behind how brains are built--their architecture--and what it means to build a strong brain. This is followed by a panel discussion with Dr. Judy Cameron, professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh; Debbie LeeKeenan, an early childhood consultant and former director of the Eliot-Pearson Children's School at Tufts University; and Dr. Pia Rebello Britto, the global chief and senior advisor for the Early Childhood Development Program Division at UNICEF. These panelists discuss the practical side of building brain architecture, and what any parent or caregiver can do to help give children's brains a strong foundation. Download the episode and subscribe now!

Healthy development in the early years provides the building blocks for educational achievement, economic productivity, responsible citizenship, strong communities, and successful parenting of the next generation. By improving children’s environments, relationships, and experiences early in life, society can address many costly problems, including incarceration, homelessness, and the failure to complete high school. But if you’re a parent, caregiver, teacher, or someone who works with children every day, you may be wondering, “Where do I start?!” From brain architecture to toxic stress to serve and return, The Brain Architects, a new podcast from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, will explore what we can do during this incredibly important period to ensure that all children have a strong foundation for future development. Listen to the trailer, and subscribe now!