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Watch: Can We Talk About Race? A Conversation with Dr. Beverly Tatum, Moderated by Dr. Michelle Porche
Link to the webpage description of the conversation, which took place on October 7, 2019 at Boston University, and video here.
AERA Presentation on Boricua Youth Study, April 16, 2018 in NYC
“Risk of School Dropout For Boricua Youth in the U.S. and Puerto Rico” will be presented as part of the symposium, “Adolescents at Risk” at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association in New York City on April 16, 2018. Co-authors with Dr. Michelle Porche include Sarah Mejia, doctoral student at BU SED, Dr. Lisa Fortuna at BMC, and Dr. Ye Wang, Dr. Kiara Alvarez, and Dr. Margarita Alegria at Harvard University/MGH.
Paper Session on Parental Stress and Adolescent Adversity at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting April 28, 2017
Michelle Porche will present “Parental Well-Being as a Mediator of Adversity: Parenting Stress and Adolescents’ Academic Engagement” at the AERA Annual Meeting in San Antonio, TX. The paper is co-authored with Jingtong Pan, Jonathan Zaff, and Elana McDermott of America’s Promise Institute. The symposium “Academic Engagement, Achievement, and Risk in Adolescence: School, Family, and Peer Predictors” takes place on Friday, April 28th from 8:15am – 9:45am.
Abstract: Early childhood adversity is often experienced directly by both caregiver and child, although research tends to more narrowly focus on the child. In this analysis, we test the relationship between family adversity and children’s academic engagement as mediated by maternal health. Secondary data analysis was conducted with the 2011/12 public dataset of the National Survey of Children’s Health, using a framework of parent resilience (Gavidia-Payne et al., 2015). A path model estimated for an adolescent subset, ages 12-17 (n=31,502) found that exposure to eight possible adverse experiences (e.g., divorce, parent incarcerated, domestic violence, neighborhood violence, family mental illness) was associated with poor caregiver health, which was correlated with parenting stress. Parenting stress mediated the association between adversity and academic engagement.
At the American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting in Atlanta May 15, 2016
On May 15, Professor Michelle Porche and Counseling Psychology doctoral student Sarah Anais Mejia were part of an invited Presidential Symposium, “Translating the Evidence for the Next Generation: Addressing the Mental Health of Youth and Emerging Adults of Color.” Chaired by Dr. Lisa Fortuna of the Boston Medical Center, the symposium was part of the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Atlanta, GA.
Professor Porche and Ms. Mejia’s talk, entitled “Why Capable Young People Struggle: Educational Attainment and Mental Health in Communities of Color,” highlighted Professor Porche’s recently published research on early trauma and associations with academic outcomes. It also touched on preliminary results of speakers’ currently-in-progress work conducting a secondary analysis of data from the Boricua Youth Study.
The Boricua Youth Study is a longitudinal study of the development and mental health of Puerto Rican children living in the Bronx and in Puerto Rico headed by Principal Investigator Dr. Margarita Alegria at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. The analysis being conducted in collaboration with Dr. Alegria and researchers at MGH investigates risk of high school dropout for Puerto Rican youth exposed to school violence and other trauma experiences.
Panel Discussion of “Paper Tigers” Documentary at the Educational Writers Association National Seminar May 1, 2016
Boston University’s School of Education and College of Communication jointly hosted this year’s Educational Writers Association (EWA) National Seminar. Beginning on May 1, Over 600 journalists and education experts participated in three days of engagement and discussion of issues related to the seminar’s theme, “The Quest for Quality and Equity.”
Dr. Michelle Porche, Clinical Associate Professor in Counseling Psychology & Applied Human Development at the School of Education, joined a panel discussing the documentary Paper Tigers at 1:30 PM on May 1. The documentary looks at students at a Washington state alternative high school that focuses on educating traumatized young people, exploring what happens to children exposed to chronic stress. Filmmaker James Redford answered questions related to the film and the issues it presents; the panel discussion, moderated by Washington Post reporter Michael Alison Chandler and also including researcher Amanda Moreno from the Erikson Institute, explored relevant research on trauma, stress and learning.
Presentation at AERA 2016 Washington, DC
Results of analysis of the National Survey of Children’s Health 2011/12 showed the negative relationship between childhood trauma and school engagement as mediated by child mental health status. Physical activity was positively related to school engagement and sedentary activity was negatively related to school engagement. In addition to academic outcomes, activity had the same associations with health as measured by BMI.
Presentation on The Impact of Complex Trauma for Youth in Residential Care
Colleagues from the Home for Little Wanderers, Kara Sabalauskas and Michael Semel, recently presented results of our collaboration, “Understanding the impact of complex trauma for youth in residential care,” at the 2016 annual meeting of the Association of Children’s Residential Centers (ACRC), in Chicago, IL. The Home uses Integrative Treatment of Complex Trauma (ITCT) and found that it significantly improves functioning for children in the program. Over three-fourths of these children, ages 6 to 19, had experienced four or more traumas.
Presented at AERA in Chicago
Just back from the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting in Chicago, where I presented preliminary results of Open Circle implementation, “Collaboration to Enhance Whole-School Social and Emotional Learning for Elementary Students” (paper by Michelle Porche, Jennifer Grossman, Darcé Costello, Nova Biro, Nancy Mackay, and Sojourner Rivers) as part of the roundtable “Evaluating the Impact of Social and Emotional Learning Programs on School and Student Outcomes.” Results showed the success in scaling up the program and analysis continues on associations between fidelity of implementation and student outcomes.
michelle v. porche, ed.d. 