Getting to Know Your International Contacts-Part 2

February 8, 2014

International Contacts China, Rwanda, and Three Caribbean Nations





 Assessing the state of child mental health services in
China;
 Developing and evaluating family-based strategies
to prevent mental health problems in children affected
by HIV/AIDS in Rwanda; and
 Addressing child maltreatment and mental health
outcomes in three Caribbean nations (Barbados, the
Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname).
To strengthen their policy relevance, each of these
projects is being designed to include an economic component
to analyze allocation effects in the supply and

demand for services.

Children in Crisis and Conflict Situations
The Global Children’s Initiative is currently exploring
potential synergies with the Harvard Humanitarian
Initiative and the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for
Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of
Public Health, both of which have extensive experience
working in emergency situations across the world. The
goal of this effort is to foster interdisciplinary collaboration
that incorporates a science-based, developmental
perspective into the assessment and management of
child well-being in a range of natural and man-made
crises, focusing on both immediate circumstances and
long-term adaptation. Two issues are the initial focus of
activity in this domain:
 Exploring comparable approaches to surveying
child status in post-earthquake Haiti and Chile.
 Bringing the science of child development into
strategies for addressing acute malnutrition.

Building Broader, More Diverse Leadership Capacity
in Research and Policy
Finally, and central to the Center’s core mission, an
array of education and training activities will be incorporated
into all of the thematic areas described above.
The first dimension of this work focuses on building a
sustainable infrastructure to support the productive
engagement of Harvard students and faculty in a diversity
of global settings. The second dimension focuses on
developing opportunities to provide leadership training
for individual researchers, policymakers, and institutions,
primarily in the majority world.