January 2, 2020
Dr. Kenneth Dodge will deliver his lecture, “Building A System of Care to Help All Children Succeed” on Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 7:30 PM in the Wilkinson Center Garden Court at Brigham Young University. Dodge will discuss how our youngest children, aged 0-4, are not faring well in this nation. Dodge will describe research that shows that although communities have an array of programs for families with young children, they do not have the impact needed to prepare children for kindergarten. His findings indicate the problem is the lack of a systematic way for communities to reach all families. Dodge will propose a new Family Connects System of Care that reaches out to every family giving birth in a community. This program provides short-term home visits from local nurses to assess needs of individual families and connect them with community resources. During his lecture, Dodge will describe three examples of how the Family Connects System of Care program has impacted communities and will describe how Family Connects is being disseminated across the country.
Dr. Dodge is the Pritzker Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University. He is also the founding and past director of the Center for Child and Family Policy. Dodge is a leading scholar in the development and prevention of aggressive and violent behaviors. His work provides a model for understanding how some young children grow up to engage in aggression and violence and provides a framework for intervening early to prevent the costly consequences of violence for children and their communities. Dodge joined the faculty of the Sanford School of Public Policy in September 1998. He is a trained clinical and developmental psychologist, having earned his B.A. in psychology at Northwestern University in 1975 and his Ph.D. in psychology at Duke University in 1978. Prior to joining Duke, Dodge served on the faculty at Indiana University, the University of Colorado, and Vanderbilt University. Dodge has published more than 500 scientific articles and was elected into the National Academy of Medicine in 2015 and is currently serving as the President-Elect of the Society for Research in Child Development.
Dr. Dodge’s address will be the 16th Annual Marjorie Pay Hinckley Lecture, named for the late wife of Gordon B. Hinckley, former president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Admission is free to all members of the public. Brigham Young University established the Marjorie Pay Hinckley Endowed Chair in Social Work and the Social Sciences in 2003 to honor Sister Hinckley’s commitment to strengthening home and family. The chair focuses on understanding and strengthening the family, the development of women, and strategies to help both parents and children in difficult circumstances. Each year, the chair invites a distinguished scholar to deliver a lecture addressing a pertinent social issue.
