The Faculty of Health has appoointed 91��ɫ psychology Professor as the director of the LaMarsh Centre for Research on Violence & Conflict Resolution.

Right: Yvonne Bohr

As the new director of the LaMarsh Centre for Research on Violence & Conflict Resolution, Bohr is on familiar ground. As an executive member of the LaMarsh Centre since 2004, she has actively participated in the redevelopment of the centre’s mission and vision. Her research encompasses issues of mental health and well-being among young children, and she actively engages the community both as collaborators in the research and for the mobilization of knowledge.

"A real strength of Dr. Bohr’s work experience, in light of the vision and mission of the LaMarsh Centre, is the breadth of her experience in both international and local partnership, both with other academics and with community members,” says Harvey Skinner, dean of the Faculty of Health. “Her existing partnerships, and her knowledge of how to build and sustain partnerships, is consistent with the LaMarsh Centre's goals to influence policy, engage the community, and build local and global learning networks.”

A clinical psychologist and psychology professor, Bohr is engaged in academic collaborations with colleagues at the Sapienza University of Rome and several centres in Canada and the United States. She also continues to lead an infant and child mental health team at , a community treatment clinic in East Toronto.

Other Faculty of Health Appointments

Claire Mallette has also been appointed the new director of 91��ɫ’s School of Nursing and Angelo Belcastro is now chair of the School of Kinesiology & Health Science.

Left: Claire Mallette

Prior to becoming director of the School of Nursing, Mallette was director of nursing education, placement & development at the University Health Network in Toronto, while holding an adjunct appointment in the Faculty of Nursing at 91��ɫ and at the University of Toronto. Mallette was also the chief nursing officer and director of professional practice at the Workplace Safety & Insurance Board of Ontario from 2002 to 2006. She has held various teaching positions at the University of Toronto, McMaster University, Sheridan College, John Abbott College and the University of Alberta Hospital School of Nursing, from 1987 to 2002, as well as staff nurse positions in hospitals in Montreal, Ontario and Alberta.

In addition, Mallette has been the principal or co-investigator of six funded grants or programs totalling approximately $1.4 million dollars for research examining educational methodologies, virtual worlds, simulation, and new nursing graduate competencies and decision-making.

“Mallette has extensive experience and strengths as an academic nurse leader, educator and researcher,” says Skinner.

Right: Angelo Belcastro

Prior to joining 91��ɫ as the new chair of the School of Kinesiology & Health Science, Belcastro was the research director in the Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton. He has taken over the position from Professor Ira Jacobs.

“Dr. Belcastro is internationally recognized for his scholarship, is an effective educator and has outstanding leadership qualities and experience,” says Skinner.

In addition, Belcastro has held senior administrative roles in a variety of academic settings, including as director of the School of Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of British Columbia, founding dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Western Ontario, vice-president academic at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, and vice-president academic & provost at Royal Roads University. He also has extensive experience in academic planning, visioning and program execution, says Skinner.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The other area of high risk for pregnancy is youth from Aboriginal communities in northern Ontario.

“As we read and summarized and synthesized research literature, and talked to youth workers, we realized there were these specific groups,” says Connolly, director of the LaMarsh Centre for Research on Violence & Conflict Resolution. “With that kind of feedback our research becomes focused and we can shift the lens to these three groups, for instance.”

That is the value of knowledge mobilization – the ability to see the gaps in the research and to more accurately zoom in where there is a need.

Right: Jennifer Connolly

The initial goal of Connolly’s KMb project, “Teen Pregnancy and Teen Mothers: Meeting the Needs in 91��ɫ Region”, was to examine the prevalence of pregnant teens and teen mothers in 91��ɫ Region and how their mental health needs were being met,  and it identify service gaps. The project also reviewed those girls receiving protective service intervention from 91��ɫ Region Children’s Aid Society to evaluate their risk for pregnancy and initiated community-based opportunities for feedback and knowledge exchange. In addition, the project was designed to help determine how research on risk and resilience can inform clinical care, maximize positive outcomes and point the way for areas of further research.

“It led us to recognize that teen pregnancy was in the low to moderate range in Canada; about three to four per cent of live births are to women 19 and younger," says Connolly, a psychology professor in the Faculty of Health. It used to be higher. In the United States, it’s up around 18 per cent and in Italy it’s down around one per cent. "Teen pregnancy has certainly dropped in Canada, but when we look at the data, it ignores the fact that there are huge disparities in that information. In some communities the risk of teen pregnancy and motherhood is much higher.”

For teen girls in the three highest risk categories, the rate of pregnancy soars to 30 to 50 per cent, and the teen pregnancy and motherhood outcomes in these groups are not good.

The research team – Connolly, 91��ɫ Professor Hala Tamim of the School of Kinesiology & Health Science in the Faculty of Health, psychology Professor Yvonne Bohr also of the Faculty of Health, Sandra Cunning of Kinark Child & Family Services and Bonita Majonis of 91��ɫ Region Children’s Aid Society – realized the value of getting the results from research and knowledge synthesization out to community members who could make use of them.

One such community would be the youth workers and service agencies that work directly with these teens. This summer, Connolly, along with colleagues and students, will post plain language research summaries on 11 different topics using the Orion 03 platform, thanks to a Canadian Institutes of Health Research supplement grant. This is part of a research mobilization project headed by David Phipps, director of the Office of Research Services, to get clear, concise summaries of research out to communities.

For Connolly’s research, youth workers from Kinark Child & Family Services and the 91��ɫ Region Children’s Aid Society will comment on the summaries and bring forth any questions.

The topics that will be tackled for the summaries will include homelessness and teen pregnancy and mothers; the risk and resilience of teen mothers; the risk and resilience of the mothers of teen mothers; teen pregnancy and teen motherhood in Canada; and the availability of services for teen mothers in 91��ɫ Region.

It will allow Connolly and Phipps to take a closer look at how synthesized research can help those using the information in the community. It’s a way to evaluate how well knowledge mobilization works, Conolly says. She is hoping the project will point to specific areas where more research is needed. “The kind of questions we will ask in future research will be shaped by the real world.”

More information about Connolly's research is available on the .

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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About 8,000 Chinese-born women gave birth in New 91��ɫ last year, so the number of children at risk is substantial, according to the Chinese-American Planning Council, a social service agency that hopes to get a grant to educate parents about the pitfalls of the practice and help them find alternatives.

The phenomenon of American-born children who spend their infancy in China has been known for years to social workers, who say it is widespread and worrying. About 8,000 Chinese-born women gave birth in New 91��ɫ last year, so the number of children at risk is substantial, according to the Chinese-American Planning Council, a social service agency that hopes to get a grant to educate parents about the pitfalls of the practice and help them find alternatives.

But no one tracks the numbers, and the issue has only recently seized the attention of early-childhood researchers like , a clinical psychologist at 91��ɫ in Toronto, who calls such children “satellite babies.”

Their repeatedly disrupted attachments to family members “could potentially add up to a mental health crisis for some immigrant communities,” Dr. Bohr wrote in an article in May in The Infant Mental Health Journal. She cited classic research like the work of Anna Freud, who found that young children evacuated during the London blitz were so damaged by separation from their parents that they would have been better off at home, in danger of falling bombs.

Dr. Bohr, who is undertaking a longitudinal study of families with satellite babies, cautions that the older research was shaped by Western values and expectations. Chinese parents, including university-educated professionals she has studied, are often influenced by cultural traditions: an emphasis on self-sacrifice for the good of the family, a belief that grandparents are the best caretakers, and a desire to ground children in their heritage.

Sending babies back to grandparents is also done in some South Asian communities, she said.

Bohr is a professor of psychology in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Health, director of the LaMarsh Centre for Child and Youth Research, and the lead author of "Satellite Babies in Transnational Families: A Study of Parents’ Decision to Separate From their Infants," which was published May 11, 2009 in the Infant Mental Health Journal.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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