Teacher Workshop

Event Description:

The pandemic's persistent effects on our children and ourselves: A child psychiatrist's perspective for schools

The COVID-19 pandemic created a disaster very unlike fires, floods and earthquakes. In this disaster, we all had to isolate. The central need for humans to connect with others for resilience became the biggest threat to physical safety. We have substantial data to support that the nature of this terrible reality particularly effected children at all stages of development in a variety of ways. This talk will consider the unique elements of the pandemic's effect on child development and health and the resulting challenges in the schools, and will share thoughts on strategies for educators trying to cope and support children and their families.

Ajit Jetmalani, M.D., is the director of the division of child and adolescent psychiatry and the Joseph Professor of Psychiatry in the OHSU School of Medicine. He brings a broad experience in treating children, adolescents and adults in outpatient, day treatment, group home, residential and hospital environments. For the past 15 years, he has consulted to the Oregon Health Authority and Department of Human Services implementing health policies and programs to improve care for youth and families in Oregon. For this conversation he will draw from his experience as a senior health advisor to OHA during the first year of the COVID pandemic.

From evidence to action: How can we build systems to promote children’s nutritional health with a focus on equity?

The evidence is clear: access to healthy foods in childhood is an investment in long-term health. Despite this evidence, children and adolescents in the U.S. still do not have sufficient and consistent access to high-quality nutrition, specifically those in low-income situations and minoritized racial and ethnic populations. This talk will provide a brief overview of the evidence supporting the need to mitigate food insecurity in youth in relation to health, the steps needed to ensure equitable implementation of initiatives, and steps for the future including tangible ways teachers can support and benefit from these initiatives.

Gabriella McLoughlin, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology in the College of Public Health at Temple University. In addition, she holds a K-12 teaching license in physical education and has ec. She received a master's and doctoral degree in kinesiology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2012-2018), before working at Iowa State University as a postdoctoral research associate (2018-2020), leading projects on childhood obesity prevention and school wellness programming. Dr. McLoughlin received in-depth training in implementation science in chronic disease prevention as a research associate at Washington University in St. Louis and is now an affiliate faculty member with the center. She is obtaining further training as a faculty fellow in the Institute for Implementation Science Scholars (IS2), a 2-year fellowship funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Current applications of implementation science reflect a variety of topics pertaining to health disparities in cancer prevention, addressing food insecurity in underserved communities, school health policy implementation, and community approaches to obesity prevention more broadly. This work is funded by agencies such as the NIH, United States Department of Agriculture, and Urban School Food Alliance. Dr. McLoughlin is deeply committed to improving implementation of evidence based policies and programs that address health equity through pragmatic approaches.