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Berglund

COLUMBUS, Miss.— Mississippi University for Women faculty member Dr. Dorothy Berglund will present at the National Council on Family Relations Annual Conference to prepare colleagues and students to address child maltreatment.

 

Berglund, associate professor of family studies at The W, will co-present with Dr. Alisha Hardman, Extension specialist in family life and assistant professor in the School of Human Sciences at Mississippi State University, about “Preparing Family Science Students to Address Child Maltreatment” Nov. 15-17 at the NCFR Annual Conference in Orlando, Fla.

“I am honored to have our paper selected for presentation because NCFR is the premier professional organization for people who work with and study families. This organization not only represents American family scientists, but family scientists from around the world,” said Berglund. “The paper was selected by blind peer review, which means that other family professionals view our work as worthy of presentation to our peers at a national conference.”

According to Berglund and Hardman’s paper, the number of children in foster care nationally has increased. Children in the foster care system have often been removed from the home due to abuse, parental incarceration, domestic violence, parental drug or alcohol use, parental depression, mental health concerns or extreme economic hardship. These experiences are referred to as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and are potentially traumatic events that can have a negative, lasting effect on health and well-being. Family life educators are well positioned to provide education to families to help prevent or address child maltreatment. However, they are not typically well-prepared to do so.

“The idea of offering a Child Advocacy Studies (CAST) curriculum in a university setting is to better prepare those who will work in child protection,” explained Berglund. “These students will gain a focus on what child maltreatment may look like in practice and how they can report child maltreatment.”

Berglund emphasized that these classes are not only beneficial to family studies and psychology majors, but could be useful to nursing, education, pre-physical therapy and pre-occupational therapy students due to their nature of being more likely to interact with children.

“If maltreated children are recognized early, the trauma to these children can be minimized,” said Berglund.

The NCFR is made of professionals from 35 countries and representing all 50 states who are dedicated to understanding and strengthening families.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 8, 2017
Contact: Tyler Wheat
(662) 241-7863
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