James Garbarino, Ph.D., an internationally recognized leader in children's human rights, will be the keynote speaker at the New England Psychological Association's 51st annual conference, which will be held at Fairfield University this year. Dr. Garbarino will deliver "Children and the Dark Side of Human Experience: Confronting Global Realities and Rethinking Child Development" at 8 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 28 in Gonzaga Auditorium.

His lecture is free and open to the public. It is part of a weekend of lectures, workshops and symposia for the more than 300 NEPA members expected to attend the conference.

Dr. Garbarino holds the Maude C. Clarke Chair in Humanistic Psychology and was the founding director of the Center for the Human Rights of Children at Loyola University Chicago. He was the Elizabeth Lee Vincent Professor of Human Development and the co-director of the Family Life Development Center at Cornell University, where he earned his Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies.

Dr. Garbarino has served as a consultant or advisor to a wide range of organizations, including the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse, the National Institute for Mental Health, the National Science Foundation and the FBI. In 1991, he undertook missions for UNICEF to assess the impact of the Gulf War on children in Kuwait and Iraq and he has been a consultant for programs serving Vietnamese, Bosnia and Croatian child refugees.

Dr. Garbarino is the author or editor of more than 20 books, including "See Jane Hit: Why Girls are Growing More Violent and What We Can Do About It" (Penguin, 2006) and "And Words Can Hurt Forever: How to Protect Adolescents from Bullying, Harassment and Emotional Violence" (Free Press, 2002). His book "What Children Can Tell Us" (Jossey-Bass, 1992) led to him being featured in a documentary about children living in violent neighborhoods in Bridgeport, Conn. He has also served as a consultant to television, magazine and newspaper reports on children and families and as a scientific expert witness in criminal and civil cases.

Among his many honors are the first C. Henry Kempe Award from the National Conference on Child Abuse and the American Humane Association's Vincent De Francis Award for nationally significant contributions to child protection.

Fairfield's College of Arts & Sciences and Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions are sponsoring the conference and Fairfield's Humanities and Science institutes are funding Dr. Garbarino's talk. For more information, visit http://nepa.cloverpad.org/ .

Posted On: 10-14-2011 11:10 AM

Volume: 44 Number: 78