Honoring Dr. T. Berry Brazelton's Legacy:

New Pathways to Supporting Infants, Parents & Families

Saturday, October 21, 2017 | 8:30 am – 4:30 pm

University of Massachusetts Boston Campus Center, Ballroom, Third Floor

This conference is co-sponsored by: Massachusetts Association for Infant Mental Health; University of Massachusetts Boston Infant-Parent Mental Health Program; The Freedman Center for Child Development and the Concentration on Children and Families of Adversity and Resilience (CFAR) at William James College;

The Program

Conference Facilitator: Arnold Kerzner, MD

8:00 - 8:30 am  Registration

8:30 - 9:00        Welcome - Arnold Kerzner, MD and Margaret Hannah, MEd

9:00 - 10:00      Barry Lester, PhD

Review of Epigenetic Studies & Effects on Child Development

10:00 - 10:45    Elisabeth Conradt, PhD

Implications for Treatment, Intervention & Policy

10:45 – 11:00     Break

11:00 - 11:45    Ed Tronick, PhD

Epigenetics - Issues, Future Directions: Where Do We Go From Here

11:45 – 1:15     Lunch Time - Honoring T. Berry Brazelton

1:15 - 2:15        Jayne Singer, PhD

Contributions of T. Berry Brazelton to the Field of Infant Mental Health and the State of Infant Mental Health in Massachusetts

2:15 - 2:45        Break

2:45 – 4:15       Alice Carter, PhD

Introduction to the Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health & Developmental Disorders of Infancy & Early Childhood (DC:0-5)

4:15 - 4:30 pm   Wrap-up and Adjourn

 

TBB6 | 6 CE Credits | lunch included

$160 per person for professionals wanting CE/PDP credits

$100 for students, interns, fellows, and retired and unemployed professionals NOT seeking CE/PDP credits

FACULTY BIOS

Alice S. Carter, PhD, is a Professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Trained as a clinical psychologist, Dr. Carter’s work focuses on young children’s development in the context of family relationships, with an emphasis on the early identification of psychopathology and factors that place children at risk for difficulties in social and emotional development. Dr. Carter completed her undergraduate work at Cornell University in Human Development and Family Studies, her graduate training in Clinical Psychology at the University of Houston, and her clinical internship and postdoctoral training in Developmental Psychopathology at the Yale Child Study Center. Her first faculty position was in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. A former fellow of Zero to Three, Dr. Carter is an author or co-author of over 200 articles and chapters, the co-editor of the Handbook of Infant, Toddler, and Preschool Mental Health Assessment with Rebecca Del Carmen, PhD, and the co-author of the Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (ITSEA) and the Brief Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (BITSEA) with Margaret Briggs-Gowan, PhD. She is also a member of the Zero to Three DC:0-5 Task Force and a DC:0-5 trainer. Her recent work addresses: 1) early identification and evaluation of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers experiencing and/or at risk for later psychopathology; and 2) addressing health disparities by improving early identification, evaluation, and treatment of infants and toddlers with autism spectrum disorders. With respect to teaching and training, she has taught both graduate and undergraduate students at Yale University and the University of Massachusetts Boston.  She has also conducted trainings on assessment of infant mental health and early detection of autism spectrum disorders nationally and internationally.

Elisabeth Conradt, PhD, is an assistant professor in developmental psychology at the University of Utah. Following the completion of her bachelors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill she trained for 2 years at the National Institutes of Health with Dr. Marc Bornstein where she investigated the effects of maternal depression on infant socio-emotional development. She received her PhD in clinical psychology in 2011 from the University of Oregon. Liz then trained with Barry Lester while on an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University. Liz has received numerous early career awards including the Victoria Levin and Early Career Research Contributions award from the Society for Research in Child Development and was deemed a “rising star” from the Association for Psychological Science. Liz has been continuously funded by the NIH since 2011. Together with her collaborators, Liz investigates the epigenetic mechanisms involved in the development of problem behavior in young children, with the goal of identifying who may be most susceptible to maladaptive developmental outcomes.

Arnold M. Kerzner, MD, graduated from the University of Vermont College of Medicine and completed residencies in Pediatrics (Tufts Medical Center, Boston Floating Hospital) and Adult Psychiatry (University of Rochester, Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester, NY), and a fellowship in Child Psychiatry (Boston Children’s Hospital-Judge Baker Guidance Center).  He is board certified by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Psychiatry and Neurology. In 1973, Dr. Kerzner founded the Boston Institute for the Development of Infants and Parents and is currently President Emeritus after serving 17 years as president.  In June 2011, after 41 years, Dr. Kerzner retired as Chief of Clinical Services at Human Relations Service, Inc. (HRS) in Wellesley, a community mental health center serving children and families in Wellesley, Weston and Wayland, MA. In this role he developed a unique Integrated Pediatric-Mental Health Access Program, a model for the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Program.  In addition to his work at HRS and at Belmont Counseling Associates, a private practice in Belmont, he was appointed President of the New England Council of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and received an Alumni Award from the University of Vermont Medical School. From 1973-2007, he was a Clinical Instructor in Child Psychiatry both at Boston  University and Harvard Medical Schools. He was Senior Psychiatrist at Perkins School for the Blind from 1984-2013. Currently, he is the psychiatric consultant for the Lighthouse School in North Chelmsford, MA, and the Valley Special Education Collaborative in Billerica, MA. Dr. Kerzner has volunteered in various programs sponsored by Global Volunteers, including stints in Romania, Costa Rica, the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana, and Cuba.  He also accompanied a post- Hurricane Katrina medical team to Baton Rouge. In June of 2017, he was inducted as a "Distinguished Life Fellow" into the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Barry M. Lester, PhD, is Professor of Psychiatry & Human Behavior, Professor of Pediatrics and founding Director of the Brown Center for the Study of Children at Risk at the Brown Alpert Medical School and Women and Infants Hospital. Current research at this Center includes studies of maternal depression, early detection of risk for autism, outcome of children with prenatal substance exposure including opioids and neonatal abstinence syndrome, the single family room Neonatal Intensive Care Unit model of care, development in preterm infants, assessment of fetal behavior and human behavioral epigenetics. The Brown Center also includes the Center for Children and Families at Women and Infants Hospital. This Centers provides behavioral health services across developmental stages of the family. These include services for women with mood and anxiety disorders during pregnancy and the postpartum period, neurobehavioral, occupational therapy and family support services for newborn infants, services for infants with crying, sleep, and feeding problems, children with autism spectrum disorders and a follow-up clinic for infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome. Dr. Lester’s research has been continuously funded by the NIH throughout his career. He has been heavily involved in the NIH peer review process having served on numerous NIH study sections, the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse, the Director’s Pioneer Award Program and the College of the Center for Scientific Review. He is past president of the International Association for Infant Mental Health and the author of more than 250 peer reviewed publications and 100 chapters and books.

Jayne Singer, PhD, is a clinical psychologist with extensive direct experience working with a diverse array of children and families in hospital and community-based settings in the metropolitan New York and Boston areas; and in a consultative and mentorship role for health and human service organizations across the country. She is the Clinical Director of the Child and Parent Program in the Developmental Medicine Center at Children’s Hospital Boston, where she works with families of children aged birth through early childhood with a wide variety of medical, developmental, emotional, behavioral, and familial challenges; providing neurodevelopmental and psychological evaluation, intervention, and preventive consultation services within an overall preventive model of infant-family mental health. Dr. Singer is the President of the Massachusetts Association for Infant Mental Health: Birth to Six, and was recently appointed to serve as commissioner for the Massachusetts state Commission on Post Partum Depression. Within her current clinical settings, she has been key to launching such divergent services as an early detection of Autism program, as well as the Cardiac Neurodevelopmental Program, which serves inpatient and outpatient children treated for congenital heart defects. Dr. Singer is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She teaches a wide range of content related to child development and family functioning to multiple disciplines of staff and professionals in training throughout the hospital setting in addition to national and international lecturing and training of practitioners in the application of the Brazelton Touchpoints Approach. Dr. Singer joined the faculty at the Brazelton Touchpoints Center (BTC) in 1999 as a continuation of her clinical work at CHB with Dr. T. Berry Brazelton since 1989. At BTC, she led the Early Care and Education Initiative, which currently informs her work with the BTC Office of Head Start National Center on Parent, Family, and Community Engagement. Dr Singer has developed adaptations of the Touchpoints Approach for families living with children with Special Needs, and is currently working on adaptations of the Approach for mental health practitioners. She is the primary author of the Touchpoints in Early Care and Education Reference Guide and the Touchpoints in Reflective Practice guides for practitioners and mentors. She also serves the Brazelton Institute as a national trainer in the Newborn Behavioral Observation system; with a specific interest in its application in infant mental health preventive care and intervention. In addition to collaborating on the development and implementation of curricula for the general professional development programs of the BTC, Dr Singer also creates and facilitates workshops on Reflective Practice, Mentorship, and Supervision as they relate to the Touchpoints Approach.

Ed Tronick, PhD, is a developmental and clinical psychologist. Professor Tronick is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He is director of the Child Development Unit, a research associate in Newborn Medicine; a lecturer at Harvard Medical School; and an associate professor at both the Graduate School of Education and the School of Public Health at Harvard. He is a member of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, a past member of the Boston Process of Change Group and a Founder and faculty member of the Touchpoints program. With Kristie Brandt, Dorothy Richardson, Marilyn Davillier he has created an Infant-Parent Mental Health Post Graduate Certificate Program at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He has developed the Newborn Behavioral Assessment Scale and the Touchpoints Project with T.B. Brazelton. He developed the Still-face paradigm. With Barry Lester he developed the NICU Network Neurobehavioral Assessment Scale. He is currently working on developing norms for the neurobehavior of clinically health newborns and collaborating with Rosario Montirosso in Milan on a multi-NICU examination of developmental caretaking and its effects on preterm infants. A set of studies on social referencing and negative affect are in process. He continues to do research on the effects of maternal depression and other affective disorders on infant and child social emotional development. In one study he is collaborating with Robert Ammerman on seriously depressed group and the effects of multiple interventions and in a second study the effect of a developmental relation intervention for post partum depression. A third study is looking at women and their infants who have been hospitalized for depression. His current research focuses on infant memory for stress and epigenetic processes affecting behavior. The research utilizes the still-face and other stress paradigms and multiple measures including ERP and EEG, salivary cortisol and alpha amylaze, and skin conductance as well as behavior. A complimentary study is examining stress processes in rats and their relation to maternal behavior. A related study is looking at epigenetic changes in IUGR infants’ and their relation to neurobehavior and stress tolerance. He is developing measures based in dynamic systems theory for dyadic infant-mother (adult) interactions and their predictive relations to later outcome. For the state’s initiative to screen women for post partum depression he is working on epidemiologic data sets to understand the nature of the responses to questions related to depression and help seeking of women in different ethnic and racial groups.  Relatedly studies are being carried out on the long term relation of stress hormones to SES, exposure to violence and other community factors and possible unique effects related to health disparities in ethnic and racial groups. He has published more than 200 scientific articles and 4 books, several hundred photographs and has appeared on national radio and television programs. His research is funded by NICHD and NSF.