James Leckman, MD, Receives AACAP’s 2020 Norbert and Charlotte Rieger Award for Scientific Achievement
By the ECPC News Team
On November 13, 2020, in Washington DC, The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) announced James F. Leckman, M.D., Ph.D., Neison Harris Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics and Psychology at the Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine, as the recipient of AACAP’s 2020 Norbert and Charlotte Rieger Award for Scientific Achievement.
This annual award recognizes the most significant paper by a child and adolescent psychiatrist published in the Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP) during the previous year, based on a novel program, identified as an exemplar in the prevention, diagnosis, or treatment of mental illnesses in children and adolescents.
Making the announcement was Drs. Stanley Leiken, President of the Rieger Board Foundation and Dr. Douglas Novins, Editor-in-Chief, JAACAP.
In this video, Dr. Leckman presents the paper “Effects of the Mother-Child Education Program on Parenting Stress and Disciplinary Practices Among Refugee and Other Marginalized Communities in Lebanon: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial” in his Honors Presentation at AACAP’s 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting.
The aim of this Yale-led randomized clinical trial (RCT) was to rigorously evaluate the implementation of the Mother-Child Education Program (MOCEP), in three Palestinian refugee camps in Beruit, Lebanon.
MOCEP, developed by AÇEV — The Mother Child Education Foundation located in Turkey, has been implemented in Turkey and in multiple countries since 1993. The evidence-based, home-based, 25-week educational program is designed to support the cognitive, emotional, social, and physical development of children 5 years of age who have not received preschool education, and serves to build confidence in mothers and improve their parenting skills.
The RCT evaluation of MOCEP employed an innovative, mixed-methods approach to investigate the associations among social contexts; maternal, child, and family functioning; and reduction in violence through the promotion of harmonious family relationships.
The RCTs findings were recently published in three peer-reviewed papers, showing that early childhood parenting education programs have a positive impact on disciplinary practices and parenting stress for families that experience humanitarian crises such as exposure to conflict, displacement, and economic marginalization.
►READ a synopsis of the three peer-reviewed papers: The promise of parent-child education programs on improving parenting practices and reducing stress in conflict-exposed families
The results of this study have implications for improving the lives of and reducing violence for the hundreds of thousands of families with young children living in fragile contexts.
James F. Leckman, M.D., Ph.D., is the Neison Harris Professor of Child Psychiatry, Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Psychology at Yale, and founding member of the Early Childhood Peace Consortium (ECPC). For more than 20 years he served as the Director of Research for the Yale Child Study Center. His peers have regularly selected him as one of the Best Doctors in America. Dr. Leckman is the author or co-author of over 450 original scientific articles published in peer-reviewed journals.
Citation
Ponguta LA, Issa G, Aoudeh L, Maalouf C, Hein SD, Zonderman AL, Katsovich L, Khoshnood K, Bick J, Awar A, Nourallah S, Householder S, Moore CC, Salah R, Britto PR, & Leckman JF. (2020). Effects of the Mother-Child Education Program on parenting stress and disciplinary practices among refugee and other marginalized communities in Lebanon: A pilot randomized controlled trial. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2020 Jun;59(6):727–738. doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2019.12.010. Epub 2020 Jan 31. PMID: 32014538.
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The ECPC is a global movement of United Nations agencies, Non-Governmental Organizations, academia, practitioners, and the private sector focused on sharing scientific and practice-based evidence on how investment in early childhood development (ECD) can contribute to sustainable peace, social cohesion, and social justice. We recognize that investing in ECD is a powerful and cost-effective strategy for reducing violence, poverty, and exclusion and for building peaceful societies.
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