Right from birth, children are learning to adapt to their new environment with help–most especially from YOU. Because they are dependent on the adults who care for their basic needs, infants must learn quickly that when they are feeling hungry, tired or need snuggles, they need to cry, fuss, or coo at you to get …
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GUEST BLOG POST: How to keep your baby safe while sleeping
Today’s guest blog post is by a colleague and friend, Dr. Emily Scott. Dr. Scott is an assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health. She has been tirelessly advocating for safe sleep during her rounds at newborn nursery, while teaching residents and speaking about this at community events and …
#JustANormalKid: Don’t forget kids are kids first!
“He is ready to go and won’t stop until he goes to bed!” “She is so forgetful and I get frustrated because I have to keep nagging her. When will she learn to take care of her own things?” “I am constantly getting calls from the school and quite frankly it is stressing me out! …
Helping parents find their voice: The Let’s Chat ADHD Project
I had the pleasure of working with a WONDERFUL group of parent and child volunteers for the past two years that has finally resulted in this awesome project. I cannot wait to share…but first, let me back up. THE PROBLEM Attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder or ADHD is a common neurobehavioral condition that starts in childhood. About …
Why engaging families in research is important…
[wpvideo PpiAAyNn] Watch this video clip to hear my story about working with families in research. It is important to collaborate with families to understand their perspectives and to be able to design solutions to meet their needs. Source: Why engaging families in research is important…
Why engaging families in research is important…
I have been working closely with my ADHD patient advisory board (PAB) for the past several years to improve upon ongoing work examining primary care-based interventions for ADHD. It is hard to believe we are nearing the end of a 2 year process. I have witnessed the change within parents who participated in the research as a ‘subject’, then agreed to serve as a ‘consultant’ to me and my team to help us think through important study issues and brainstorm solutions as challenges arose…and finally to ‘collaborators’ in the final stages of the current study.
However, they are not the only ones who have changed. I have changed too.
As a behavioral pediatrician, I see patients in clinic to provide recommendations to families who are struggling with child behavior problems. As a researcher, I take those clinical experiences and think of new and different ways to solve the bigger problems of earlier identification and management of behavior problems in busy clinics, how to improve communication at the point of care and finding solutions to support pediatricians and families in the process.
It was not until I worked closely with the parents & children who were members of my PAB that I truly began to appreciate just how meaningful their “voices” were to the work I do.
Don’t get me wrong. I have always been a collaborative person. I think that is partly why I love developmental-behavioral pediatrics as a field. It is, by nature, an interdisciplinary field. It is also why my research has always involved working within the clinics and the healthcare team and not simply analyzing data. Add to the mix a wonderful team of health communication designers and I was hooked.
Below is a video filmed by a co-investigator/filmmaker, Mr. C. Thomas Lewis, from IUPUI School of Informatics and Computing a few weeks ago to tell my story about working with a PAB and how it has changed my approach to conducting health services research.
Watch my story by clicking here.
If you are interested in learning more about health services research, check out the Indiana Children’s Health Services Research website at: www.ichsr.org