Genetic and Environmental Impacts: Redressing and Recovering
- How do environments of homelessness influence the expression of genes?
- Under what conditions, if any, can homeless children recover from the disruption attendant to homelessness? Disruptions include untreated mental illness in families, recurrent exposure to family violence, abuse and neglect and demoralized neighborhoods, poverty, and non-parental care givers.
- What are the impacts of homelessness on early child development—pre-natal through toddlers?
- How best, if at all, can the striking disparities in what children know and can do before they enter kindergarten be redressed?
- How does early experience affect aspects of development—from neural circuitry of the maturing brain to expanding network of a child's social relationships to parental and social values?
- When are environmental threats to the developing central nervous system first evident and what can be done to systematically redress them?
- What efforts, if any, have been made over the last decade to reduce documented environmental threats or risks that arise from harmful prenatal and early postnatal neuro-toxic exposures?
- What are the developmental pathways that characterize the adaptations of children with disabilities, children bound by poverty and homelessness and dysfunctional families and neighborhoods?
Science, Public Policy and Practice
- Which interactions among early childhood science, policy, and practice are most problematic and why?
- How can society use knowledge about early childhood development to maximize the nation's human capital?
- How can the nation/society/societal actors/universities use knowledge about early childhood development to nurture, protect, and ensure the health and well-being of all young children?
- How does a nation move responsibly toward out-of home parenting and care giving?
- How, if at all, are close dependable relationships that provide nurturance, security and responsive interaction, fostered and sustained in an environment of homelessness?
- What are the most vital roles for colleges and universities to play in redressing child homelessness and child poverty?
- What kind of curricula is needed to redress the dearth of early childhood professionals with mental health expertise?
- How, if at all, can early socio-emotional and mental impairments—trauma, feelings of loss and rejection—be redressed?
- The juxtaposition of joblessness, income insecurity, non-parental in-home nurturance, and lack of affordable and quality child care create complex challenges. How best should each be addressed?
Student Testimonials
"The child homelessness discussion course has been extremely eye opening for me. I absolutely love coming to each discussion group meeting. I feel like I have learned a lot so far, and would love to see other courses like this offered in the future. I think this discussion group could lead to great things."
- Grace Kelly, Elementary Education, Class of 2013
Faculty Spotlight
Michael Illuzzi
Assistant Professor of Political Science
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Nancy V. Heims
Assistant Professor of Global Studies
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