Graduate student Vanessa Esquivel featured in UConn Today for her recent Head Start Dissertation Grant from the Administration of Children and Families for her dissertation work to study the association between parents and Early Head Start service providers. Caitlin Lombardi is mentoring Vanessa on this project. https://today.uconn.edu/2024/12/giving-latine-families-an-early-head-start/
Congratulations to Candi Nwakasi, who was awarded a grant from the Office of Global Affairs, “Mental health support seeking among Nigerians with a history of cancer and HIV!
UConn Today recently interviewed Marlene Schwartz for their new video about the Rudd Center’s “Cultural Foods Guide”. https://today.uconn.edu/2024/10/tackling-food-insecurity-cultural-food-guide/
After her freshman year at UConn, Christine changed her major and transferred into what was then the School of Family Studies to pursue a degree working with young children. Her concentration was Child Development and Early Childhood Education. This decision came after she took the course Programs for Young Children with Dr. Jane Goldman. Jane also became Christine’s academic advisor. Christine began a field placement at the Child Development Laboratories (CDL) in what was then the Infant/Toddler Room. She fell in love with the Program and completed student teaching experiences in both the Infant/Toddler Room and the Preschool Room.
After graduation, Christine accepted a teacher position in the Infant/Toddler Room at Packachoag Early Childhood Program in Auburn, Massachusetts. During her four years at the school, she taught children in both the Infant/Toddler and Preschool rooms. She developed and wrote the school’s first curriculum for Infants and Toddlers. Christine also wrote the Early Childhood newsletter for the school providing information about the Program and early childhood development news for families.
When Christine married her husband in 1993, she moved back to Connecticut and began teaching at the Creative Child Center at UConn Health. She was a Lead Teacher with toddlers in her 4 years there. Christine loved working in a team-teaching environment and the UConn position was her first experience preparing a program for accreditation with the National Association of Education for Young Children.
Upon returning from maternity leave after the birth of her son in 1998, Christine accepted a position as a Master Teacher here at UConn at the CDL. She has been teaching toddlers and mentoring UConn students for the past 26 years. Christine considers it a career achievement to come full circle and return to the model school that sparked her love of early childhood and supported her when most people did not recognize her as a “real” teacher. Two decades later, educators of young children are still not universally recognized or compensated for the very important work that they do. Many students and families come through the UConn Early Childhood Specializations programs each year and Christine considers it an honor and privilege to educate them about child development and the very important first three years of life for growth and learning.
Christine and her husband are proud to be UConn alumni, and both of their children are also UConn grads. They love to attend UConn sporting events and enjoy walks around the beautiful UConn campus. Christine is an avid reader and enjoys hiking with her husband and their dog Bennie.
Ida Ghaemmaghamfarahani is a first-year PhD student specializing in Adulthood, Aging, and Gerontology under Dr. Keith Bellizzi’s mentorship. Originally from Tehran, Iran, Ida began her academic journey with an engineering degree from the University of Tehran. However, her deep interest in mental health and human behavior led her to pursue a master’s in clinical psychology. There, she explored how stressful life events affect psychological well-being in older adults, focusing on the roles of social isolation and emotion regulation. During her graduate studies, Ida joined the Iranian Research Center on Aging, where she researched cognitive aging and psychometrics, developing skills in assessment and measurement tools for older populations. She also gained clinical experience through a 3-month psycho-oncology observership in the palliative care unit at Firoozgar Hospital, a teaching hospital in Tehran, where she learned about the psychological needs of individuals facing advanced-stage cancer, and a 6-month clinical internship working with individuals with disabilities. These experiences broadened her understanding of therapeutic practices for diverse needs. After completing her master’s, Ida worked as a research assistant at the Tehran Institute of Psychiatry, collaborating with the WHO Collaborating Center for Mental Health in Iran on national suicide prevention projects.
Since moving to the U.S. in 2020, Ida has continued her research journey, working with Protect International Risk and Safety Services Inc. and at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, where she now contributes to NIH-funded projects on dementia and caregiving. At UConn, Ida is interested in exploring how chronic illnesses and aging-related challenges affect quality of life in older adults, with a focus on finding insights to support healthy aging and well-being.
Outside of her academic work, Ida enjoys walking her dog, spending time with her husband, and watching documentaries that delve into human behavior and the mind.
Caroline Mavridis is an Assistant Research Professor of HDFS and Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Culture, Health, and Human Development (CHHD). Her work includes research, evaluations of social intervention programs in Connecticut, supervising graduate and undergraduate research assistants in the CHHD, and training front-line human service workers. Caroline’s research interests are twofold: 1) the role of culture in parenting ideas and practices, and its implications for children’s developmental outcomes; and 2) experiences of stress, self-care, and well-being among caregivers.
Caroline became interested in stress and self-care as a doctoral student working with interview data from expectant and new mothers in the International Baby Study (funded by NIH) with advisors Sara Harkness and Charles Super, developing a mixed-methods analysis that formed the basis of her dissertation. Around the same time, as part of the CHHD, Caroline became involved in collaboration with the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood through evaluation research and training for direct service staff, such as home visitors, who serve families with complex needs. Caroline found that these family service staff were an understudied caregiving population, with their own sets of daily contexts and ideas that shaped their self-care, well-being, and job satisfaction. This experience led her to carry out an analysis of staff reflections about their stress and self-care (Mavridis, Super, Harkness, & Liu, 2019), and, more recently, to design and conduct a study of stress and coping among supervisors of home visiting programs as they supported staff through the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic (Mavridis, Gans, & Harkness, 2024, submitted for publication).
The findings of these studies point to the need for more formal support tailored to the unique emotional challenges of frontline family service staff and the people who supervise and support them, and the promise of empowerment-based training for helping these staff to enhance their mindfulness and self-care, set healthier work/family boundaries, and build up their support systems. Caroline is involved at all stages of other CHHD research projects. She has presented at national and international conferences, such as ISSBD, and for the local service provider community through webinars and workshops for the Office of Early Childhood. She continues a long record of work on behalf of the National Family Development Credential ™ (FDC) Program, having co-facilitated training for frontline staff and leaders from Connecticut and nationwide.
Caroline earned her BA in Anthropology at Connecticut College and completed her PhD and postdoctoral training in UConn’s Department of HDFS at the CHHD. When not in research mode, Caroline enjoys time with loved ones, science fiction, and early morning workouts.
Mavridis, C. J., Harkness, S., Super, C. M. & Liu, J. L. (2019). Family workers, stress, and the limits of self-care. Children and Youth Services Review, 103, 236-246.
Mavridis, C., Gans, K. M., & Harkness, S. (2024, submitted for publication). Supervising home visitors at a distance: Challenges and adaptations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Congratulations to Joan Fenton (HDFS alum), who, together with her husband, Richard Fenton, are this year’s recipients of the James C. Fallon Distinguished Service Award, the highest award given by the Brockport, NY Board of Education for their service to the district, the students, the community and the college. Learn more about their careers and work here: https://westsidenewsny.com/schools/2024-10-06/community-members-presented-with-james-c-fallon-distinguished-service-award/
Professor Keith Bellizzi was featured in UConn Today in an article about his work on a new study of communication and intimacy among couples facing metastatic breast cancer: https://today.uconn.edu/2024/10/study-investigates-communication-intimacy-among-couples-facing-metastatic-breast-cancer/
Four HDFS faculty and three graduate students will be giving five presentations at the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) conference later this month in Bellevue, Washington. Learn about them here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ubx8DQazSgr21R425puu1h0cVvJE1gpe_EbHBssoEDM/edit?usp=sharing
Undergraduate student Katherine Gutierrez, a sophomore, participated in the Fall Frontiers Poster Exhibition on October 23rd, as part of the SHARE program, which supports undergraduate research projects in the social sciences, humanities, and arts. SHARE is designed especially for students in the earlier stages of their college careers as a means of introducing students to research in their chosen field and of developing skills they will need for further research projects. Katherine presented a poster based on her work with Dr. Sarah Rendón García titled “Platicando Juntos: Mothers Learning How to Talk to Their Children About Immigration.”