UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Gene Brody, founder and director of the Center for Family Research and Regents’ Professor of Child and Family Development at the University of Georgia, will present the 2016 Bennett Lecture in Prevention Science at Penn State.
The lecture, “The Center for Family Research Prevention Programs: Origins, Expansions, and What They Teach Us About Development,” will focus on the work of the center, including descriptions of three research-based, developmentally appropriate drug-use prevention programs Brody developed for African-American children and young adults in the rural South.
“Drug use prevention programs for African-Americans are scarce in rural areas, and particularly in the rural South,” Brody said. “The three programs we’ve developed to address this challenge are the Strong African American Families Program for pre-adolescents, the Strong African American Families-Teen Program for adolescents, and the Adults in the Making Program for emerging adults. All three have been proven to be effective with these groups.”
The lecture will be held from 4 to 5 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 20, in 110 Henderson Building at University Park. The lecture is sponsored by the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center, through the Bennett Endowment for Children and Adolescents in the College of Health and Human Development.
Brody is an internationally recognized expert on protective mechanisms that predict drug use and other problem behaviors among rural African-American youth. His research focuses on family and school processes linked with academic and psychosocial competence among children and adolescents, with particular emphasis in the contributions of parent-child relationships, sibling relationships, and classroom experiences during elementary and junior high school.
He is also interested in the health and well-being of resilient low-socioeconomic status youth, and whether their successes translate into physical health benefits.
Brody received his doctoral degree in developmental psychology from the University of Arizona and is the author or co-author of more than 200 publications, many of which focus on African-American youth development or substance use prevention. In addition to numerous other honors and fellowships, Brody is a two-time recipient of the Reuben Hill Award from the National Council on Family Relations.
Previous Bennett lecturers have included Matthew Sanders, professor of clinical psychology and director of the Parenting and Family Support Centre, University of Queensland, Australia; Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Child Development and Education at Teachers College and the College of Physicians and Surgeons; Nancy Gonzales, ASU Foundation Professor and director of the Prevention Research Center at Arizona State University; Philip Fisher, professor of psychology, University of Oregon; and Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Courtney Sale Ross Professor of Globalization and Education, New York University.