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| navigate: home: magazine: spring 2003: article | |
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Faculty Outreach Award winner’s programs make life better for children and families By Deborah A. Benedetti | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Outreach is an integral component of everything Dr. Mark T. Greenberg does. His prevention research and outreach initiatives have benefited countless children and families in Pennsylvania and throughout the world. He credits Penn State’s leadership in outreach and supportive environment for engagement for enabling him to further his research and outreach objectives. “Penn State has been an enormous catalyst for my ability to do effective outreach,” Greenberg said. “Moving from the University of Washington six years ago made a major change in my work and goals, not only because of Penn State’s land-grant role, but also because Penn State takes its land-grant mission of integrating outreach and research seriously. What I’m doing is really valued here.” The University has recognized his research and outreach accomplishments by presenting him with the 2003 Award for Faculty Outreach. Greenberg is the first holder of the Edna Peterson Bennett Chair in Prevention Research and professor of human development and family studies in the College of Health and Human Development. He also is the founding director of the Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human Development. He is focusing his efforts on three projects: PRESCHOOL EDUCATION
He is contributing to the Pennsylvania Governor’s Early Childhood Care and Education Task Force, begun in 2002 by then Gov. Mark Schweiker and continuing under Gov. Ed Rendell’s administration. Greenberg has been the lead researcher on the University Children’s Policy Collaborative, a partnership with colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh and Temple University. The collaborative conducted five research projects for the task force. Its goal is to help state government agencies, legislators and others explore policy and funding issues related to early education and make changes to improve education in the state. (see story)
“I have great hope, even given the budget crisis in Pennsylvania, Gov. Rendell will move forward with preschool education programs for low-income children,” Greenberg said. PROSPER project
Penn State and Iowa State University have received more than $19 million from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to develop community partnerships that strengthen families and help young people avoid substance abuse and behavioral problems. PROmoting School-community-university Partnerships to Enhance Resilience (PROSPER) is a five-year project that will involve about 10,000 youth in 28 communities throughout Pennsylvania and Iowa. Greenberg, project director, and Dr. Karen Bierman, Distinguished Professor of Psychology and director of the Children, Youth and Families Consortium, are Penn State’s leaders for the project.
The project is supporting the development of local partnership teams in seven Pennsylvania school districts: Stroudsburg, Salisbury, Carbondale, West Perry, Littlestown, Bradford and Wyoming Valley. Greenberg, Bierman and project staff will follow 6,000 children: 3,000 who are receiving the program and 3,000 in a comparison school district.
The project teams, comprised of school leaders, Penn State Cooperative Extension staff, parents, community leaders, students and health and social service providers, will identify needs and offer scientifically tested programs to improve the health and well-being of middle school and high school students. In seven other Pennsylvania school districts, local teams will receive technical assistance to implement similar programs following a three-year waiting period.
“We are now at a point where the school districts are beginning to provide parenting programs in the evenings,” Greenberg said. “There is a great collaboration between the College of Health and Human Development, the College of Agricultural Sciences and Cooperative Extension.”
PROSPER is intended to be a model for a national network of partnerships, he added. The project also will examine ways to sustain the local programs after the grant funding has ended. HARRISBURG SCHOOL DISTRICT
“We are working intensively with the Harrisburg School District in Dauphin County,” he said. “We have been very successful in gaining almost $17 million in new funding to develop preschool programs and evaluation programs for children in this area.”
His approach, he explained, is to “work closely over a long period of time with communities to use the best science to improve the well-being of children and families. I enjoy working with communities, and Penn State is a great place to do this. Through Cooperative Extension and all of the University’s outreach activities, Penn State has developed a reputation with the state government and the people of Pennsylvania as an innovator and problem solver. I take advantage of Penn State’s reputation in my work with kids.”
One of his signature programs for children is now 23 years old and still growing and expanding. Developed in 1980, Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies (PATHS) is a school-based curriculum that promotes emotional understanding, self-control and positive peer relations among elementary school students. The program helps children build their emotional health. It teaches them to become aware of their emotions and offers them opportunities to use their developing cognitive skills to think ahead and create alternative plans. PATHS is being used in more than 500 schools around the world, including in the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Great Britain, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway and Wales.
Over the past few years, Greenberg and Dr. Celene Domitrovich, assistant director of the Prevention Research Center, modified the PATHS curriculum for use in preschool Head Start programs for 3- and 4-year-olds. They have evaluated the program in experimental trials in partnership with the Head Start programs of Clinton, Cumberland, Dauphin, Lycoming and Perry counties. Results have been very positive, showing significant gains in social and emotional competence for children who receive the program.
Greenberg had an opportunity to share his Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies curriculum with the Dalai Lama, leader of Tibetan Buddhism and head of the Tibetan government in exile, and 11 invited Buddhist scholars and Western psychologists, neuroscientists and philosophers during the March 2000 Mind and Life VIII institute, held in Dharamsala, India.
The five-day program focused on exploring destructive emotions. Greenberg’s presentation, “Schooling for the Good Heart,” is featured as one chapter in the book Destructive Emotions: How Can We Overcome Them? A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama, narrated by Dr. Daniel Goleman, and published by Bantam Books in January 2003.
In Destructive Emotions, Greenberg said, “During the past 20 years or so, I and other colleagues in America and elsewhere have begun to scientifically test whether we can intervene effectively in the schools to build emotional health.
I’m very happy to say that we now have scientific evidence that, using the PATHS curriculum two to five times a week, we can be successful in improving children’s well-being.” PREVENTION RESEARCH CENTER
Greenberg coordinates PATHS and his other research, evaluation and outreach initiatives through the Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human Development (http://www.prevention.psu.edu) in the College of Health and Human Development.
The goal of the center, which opened in 1998, is to promote healthy child development and reduce the prevalence of high-risk behaviors and poor outcomes for children, youth and families.
“We want to empower communities by bringing to bear the best science to meet their goals,” Greenberg said. “We also want communities to take full ownership of programs, so that when funding ends, the programs continue.”
The first steps Greenberg and his colleagues take when working with communities are to get to know the leaders and to listen to their concerns and goals. Then they use their expertise to tailor programs to address these needs.
Located at University Park campus, the Prevention Research Center also has offices and staff in Harrisburg and York. The center employs more than 40 full-time faculty and staff, in addition to graduate students and adjunct faculty from other University colleges and departments. Currently, 23 projects totaling more than $12 million in grant funding are under way at the center.
The center works closely with other University units, including the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, the Children, Youth and Families Consortium and Cooperative Extension. Undergraduate and graduate students also have opportunities to participate in research and outreach initiatives.
“There is an enormous advantage in undergraduate and graduate education for students to see how we can apply knowledge from basic research, translating it into action communities can take,” Greenberg said. “We’re working with more than 100 Pennsylvania communities. This gives our students many opportunities to see research in action and meet with key leaders in communities. They gain a better understanding of the problems communities face and how communities are solving them.”
He added, “The translational aspect of taking basic research and applying it in communities has grown dramatically in the last two decades and has made university research much more relevant to communities.” CAPITAL AREA EARLY CHILDHOOD TRAINING INSTITUTE
The Capital Area Early Childhood Training Institute (CAECTI) is a community-based extension of the Prevention Research Center. Dr. Richard Fiene is director of the institute, which works with agencies, programs, schools and hospitals in the Harrisburg area to provide information and training to parents, child-care workers and other professionals working with infants and toddlers. A key goal is to develop, implement and evaluate innovative training models based on sound research principles.
Fiene has encouraged the development of University-community partnerships to identify problems and develop research-based strategies to address community needs. The Harrisburg Center for Healthy Child Development houses the CAECTI.
Janice R. Black, president and chief operating officer of the Greater Harrisburg Foundation, has called the institute “a major accomplishment that will have a positive impact on many young lives and on their caretakers, as well.”
The Capital Area Early Childhood Training Institute has established an online Capital Area Early Childhood Training Directory, which helps child-care professionals identify training projects, services and resources from many area agencies. The institute’s Web site (http://ecti.hbg.psu.edu) provides the latest research and information related to infants and toddlers for both parents and child-care providers. OTHER RESEARCH, EVALUATION AND OUTREACH INITIATIVES
Greenberg and his colleagues in the Prevention Research Center are involved in a number of other prevention research, evaluation and outreach initiatives. Among them are program evaluations for the Pennsylvania Safe Schools Initiative, Pennsylvania violence prevention programs, the Communities That Care program and Head Start programs.
In collaboration with the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, Greenberg and his colleagues are providing technical assistance and evaluation of more than 50 sites implementing blueprint violence prevention programs.
“This is a very innovative program for Pennsylvania,” he said. “It’s unusual for a state to move to research-based funding.”
This is a step in the right direction, he believes, because it can help communities sustain successful programs.
Seven years ago, the state Commission on Crime and Delinquency began funding the Communities That Care program to help communities develop prevention boards to support healthy adolescent development. Greenberg and his colleagues have been studying the effectiveness of this model and helping state officials improve this program. Cooperative Extension is actively involved in this program throughout the state.
Dr. Theodore R. Alter, associate vice president for outreach, director of Cooperative Extension and associate dean in the College of Agricultural Sciences, said, “The Communities That Care program is a key Cooperative Extension initiative. We believe that investing in young people pays great dividends to society, so our extension staff members are actively involved with the Communities That Care boards in their counties. They assist the boards by developing and conducting programs for young people and their families.”
Dr. Marilyn Corbin, assistant director of Cooperative Extension and state program leader for children, youth and families, is an advocate for the Communities That Care program, as well.
“We are committed to helping communities explore issues involving youth, so that solutions can be implemented,” Corbin said. “Young people face so many challenges today—peer pressures to smoke, drink alcohol and use drugs, as well as incidents of aggression and bullying. We want to encourage the participation of community groups in identifying and preventing destructive behaviors.”
Greenberg added, “We are working with communities to see which programs succeed and which fail. We then take this knowledge back to communities to improve these programs.” ACADEMIC CAREER
Before joining Penn State in 1997, Greenberg was a member of the faculty at the University of Washington for 20 years. He earned his bachelor of arts degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1973 and his master of arts (1976) and doctoral (1978) degrees from the University of Virginia.
He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the recipient of a Research Scientist Award from the Society for Prevention Research, as well as a member of a number of editorial boards and a consultant reviewer for a dozen professional journals in his field.
He also serves on numerous community service and advisory boards, including the Juvenile Prevention Advisory Committee of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency and the Pennsylvania Governor’s Community Partnership for Safe Children.
Greenberg moved to Penn State with his family. Christa, his wife, is a psychologist who has worked with him on numerous programs. His children are Martin, 13, and Hannah, 9.
He is a champion of outreach and the benefits it brings to both himself and the children, families and communities he works with throughout Pennsylvania and beyond.
“I’m very excited by how receptive Pennsylvania communities are to being involved in high-quality research and technical assistance programs designed to improve the well-being of children and families,” Greenberg said. “Our interactions with communities are generating new research ideas and influencing policy at the state and federal levels.” | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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