Arietta Slade, Ph.D.
Arietta Slade, Ph.D. is Clinical Professor at the Yale Child Study Center, and Professor Emerita in the doctoral program in Clinical Psychology at the City University of New York. An internationally recognized theoretician, clinician, researcher, and teacher, she has published widely on reflective parenting, the clinical implications of attachment theory, the development of parental mentalization, and the relational contexts of early symbolization, and regularly presents her work to national and international audiences. For the past 13 years she has been co-directing Minding the Baby, an interdisciplinary reflective parenting home visiting program for high-risk mothers, infants, and their families, at the Yale Child Study Center and School of Nursing. This program is one of only 17 certified “evidence-based” home visiting programs in the United States. Dr. Slade is editor, with Jeremy Holmes of the six volume set, Major Work on Attachment (SAGE Publications, 2013), with Elliot Jurist and Sharone Bergner, of Mind to Mind: Infant Research, Neuroscience, and Psychoanalysis (Other Press, 2008), and with Dennie Wolf, of Children at Play (Oxford University Press, 1994).
Jimmy Venza, Ph.D.
Dr. Jimmy Venza is the Executive Director of The Lourie Center for Children's Social & Emotional Wellness. Dr. Venza provides strategic direction for the Lourie Center's core programs: The Parent-Child Clinical Services Program; Lourie Center School; Therapeutic Nursery Program; and Early Head Start Program.
Dr. Venza joined the Lourie Center in 2003 to complete his postdoctoral training in the Therapeutic Nursery and Parent-Child Clinical Services programs. In 2004, Dr. Venza became director of the Therapeutic Nursery Program (TNP), a mental health and early childhood education program that provides integrated educational and therapeutic support for preschool children exhibiting emotional and behavioral disturbances. Dr. Venza has extensive experience and training with children, adolescents and families from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic populations, often dealing with trauma, abuse, crisis management and a wide range of mental health issues. Dr. Venza has presented at local and national conferences on topics such as attachment theory, child placement consultation, social-emotional development of children and families and therapeutic interventions for social, emotional, and behavioral disturbances in children.
Dr. Venza earned a bachelor's degree in anthropology and history from the University of Notre Dame, and a doctorate degree in clinical psychology from Long Island University's Brooklyn campus.
Lisa Berlin, Ph.D.
Lisa Berlin is Associate Professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work. Her program of research cuts across social work, developmental psychology, and public health. She is particularly interested in applying attachment theory, research, and attachment-based intervention to support at-risk families with infants and young children. Dr. Berlin has received support for her research from federal and private agencies, including a career development (K01) award from NIMH. Currently Dr. Berlin is Co-PI of a 5-year Early Head Start-University Partnership funded by the U.S. Administration for Children and Families. This randomized trial is evaluating the effects of home-based Early Head Start services plus a brief, attachment-based parenting intervention, Dozier’s Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up program. Other ongoing projects address the effects of intensive home visiting and the associations between mothers’ prenatal, psychosocial risks and assets and their later parenting behaviors. Dr. Berlin has published widely on topics relevant to vulnerable children and families in journals such as Child Development, Prevention Science, and Attachment and Human Development.
Dr. Neil Boris
Dr. Boris is currently Director of the Irving Harris Training Institute at the Center for Prevention and Early Intervention Policy at Florida State University and Project Director for Circle of Security International. In the 20+ years since graduating from residency at Brown University in pediatrics, adult psychiatry and child psychiatry, Dr. Boris has focused on the social and emotional development of high-risk children—including those under five years of age. His research, for example, has ranged from studying early intervention programs serving high-risk families in the U.S. to capturing the impact of community-based programs for orphans in Rwanda and Malawi. His clinical work has been equally wide ranging: from involvement with programs focused on young maltreated children to children with life-threatening illnesses or those with substance-abusing parents. He attained the rank of tenured Professor at Tulane University where his passion for teaching and training was awarded with a Teaching Scholar Award. He has held several leadership positions, including being an associate editor of the Infant Mental Health Journal and being on the Board of Directors of the World Association of Infant Mental Health.
Brenda Jones Harden, Ph.D.
For more than 35 years, Dr. Jones Harden has focused on the developmental and mental health needs of young children at environmental risk, specifically children who have been maltreated, are in the foster care system, or have been exposed to multiple family risks such as maternal depression, parent substance use, and poverty. She is particularly interested in using this research to inform practice, with respect to preventive interventions to promote positive outcomes for children reared in high-risk circumstances, such as home visitation and Early Head Start.
Dr. Harden is a professor in the University of Maryland’s Institute for Child Study/Department of Human Development. She also directs Advocates for Children, one of the College Park Scholars’ 12 special living-learning programs for academically talented first- and second-year students. Trained as a social worker and psychologist, Jones Harden has devoted her career to practice and research relevant to children at environmental risk. Much of her work has centered on those in the child welfare system, children exposed to violence and children prenatally exposed to drugs. She has developed and evaluated interventions, including a Head Start violence prevention initiative and an Early Head Start infant mental health initiative. Jones Harden is particularly interested in the evaluation of home visiting and early intervention programs, and in using research to inform policy and practice. Her four federal research grants include the current Early Head Start initiative and another on preschool children in foster care. She has contributed to numerous scholarly journals and is the author of “Infants in the Child Welfare System” (Zero to Three, forthcoming) and co-author of “Beyond Common Sense: Child Welfare, Child Well-Being and the Evidence for Policy Reform” (Transaction, 2005). In 2000-2001, Jones Harden had a Society for Research in Child Development fellowship with the federal Administration for Children, Youth and Families. She earned a master’s degree in social work at New York University and a Ph.D. in developmental-clinical psychology at Yale University. While at Yale, she studied child development and social policy as a Bush Fellow.
Dr. Yair Ziv
Dr. Ziv serves as the Chair of the Multidisciplinary Program for Early Education and Development, Department of Counseling and Human Behavior, University of Haifa. His research focuses on preschool children's social and emotional development. Specifically, he is interested in young children's social information processing patterns and children's attachment relationships and representations and the types of relationships that develops between children and their caregivers in educational settings. Dr. Ziv has completed his graduate studies in Developmental psychology at the University of Haifa (with honors) and completed his post-doctoral training at the University of Maryland, College Park Department of Psychology. Dr. Ziv has been partnering with the Lourie center on various research projects since 2008.