The Center For Child And Family Policy - 1555 Words

Although critics such as Stanley Fish believe that institutes of higher education should not promote civic engagement, universities such as Duke University heavily push students to become more civically and politically engaged, even making certain courses have requirements to complete a service component. Numerous civic engagement programs exist at Duke that offer different services and opportunities for students to engage with the community. Duke University’s Center for Child and Family Policy offers a civic engagement program the School Research Partnership (SRP), which attempts to address issues of education inequity and achievement. To understand the vastness of civic engagement opportunities, I will compare SRP to Bass Connections at†¦show more content†¦In 1988, Duke University hired former Ph.D. student Kenneth Dodge, a clinical and developmental psychologist from Vanderbilt, to lead the effort. Thus, on July 1, 1999, the Center for Child and Family Policy was officially open (â€Å"Center for Child and Family Policy†). The Center fellows focus their research on â€Å"the effect of economic distress on child development, early childhood, the development of risky behaviors, childhood mental illness, and a wide range of education policy issues including school truancy, charter schools, teacher training and education reform efforts.† From August 2003 to July 2009, the Center conducted the largest violence-prevention study that the National Institute of Mental Health has ever funded. In addition, the Center houses the Center for Adolescent Risk and Resilience (C*StARR), a research project that studies the biology and behavior producing teen substance abuse. The Center can give journalists expert explanations â€Å"on the above topics, as well as child abuse prevention, youth violence prevention, children and technology, parenting across cultures, single mothers and more.† The Center provided evaluations of programs that can positively affect the lives of children. They have worked with fed eral granting agencies, the state government, public school systems, and community organizations. The staff helps with grant writing, identifying potential funding sources, and provide solutions that combine scientific