From youth mentoring to inter-generational issues. From the impact of pre-natal care to the effects of homelessness. And from the issues that face orphanages, to the challenges that face children around the globe, Christina (Chris) Groark, PhD, associate professor of education and co-director of the School of Education’s Office of Child Development (OCD), has been at the forefront of providing innovative solutions to these difficult social problems through research, education, practice, and policy.
While her Office facilitates many different types of collaborations with organizations at the local, state, and national levels, it was working with at-risk children in the Pittsburgh area that opened up a wealth of possibilities, and led to one of it's most impactful programs: working with international orphanages and improving the lives of the children living there.
“We had received positive results from programs for at-risk children in Pittsburgh regarding their interpersonal, cognitive, and academic performance. An organization working in St. Petersburg, Russia learned of our work and this led to an invitation to meet with Russian government and university officials in 1991,” says Chris. “We discussed children’s issues, welfare policies, legal issues, and were also invited to visit their orphanages.”
As part of successful programs in the Pittsburgh region, Chris and the Office of Child Development had done extensive work on the impact to children of living in environments such as foster care, homeless shelters, parents with addictions or who were abusive – all problems that were comparable to what was going on in Russia at the time.
“We looked at the personnel policies of the orphanages. We saw that there was very little focus on the staff establishing relationships with the babies, and we were seeing what we believed to be psychosocial growth delays in these children,” explains Chris. “We helped them focus on strengthening the relationship between the young children and the women caring for them. We also advised them to remove large floor playpens, integrate children by age and disability, and to separate them into smaller groups. The results were impressive: less anxiety and stress on the part of the caregivers, the children were growing better, and many more were hitting their developmental milestones.”
Because of the success in the Russian orphanages, Chris and her colleagues were awarded another grant to follow children from the improved orphanages after they were actually adopted, fostered or returned to their biological families and observe how well they adapted to their new situations versus the children who didn’t have any type of intervention. Although this study is still in progress, preliminary results look to be impressive as the children from the improved centers appear to have fewer adjustment issues at school and in their homes.
The orphanage's reputation continued to spread and Chris and her team were asked by Half-the-Sky, a private foundation that works with the Ministry of Civil Affairs in China, to help with some of the difficult situations in the country's orphanages. The OCD team is effective in diverse settings because they work with people on the ground, getting buy-in from neighborhood residents (or in this case key stakeholders in the country), incorporating the ideas they want, and recruiting people from the local areas to be part of the program and evaluation teams.
“Again, we approached it from a relationship-based perspective. We taught the caregivers the importance of making eye contact, using the child’s name, talking to them, taking time and following cues, and being responsive to children’s needs and moods,” continues Chris.
Because of this work – the largest intervention-based study on orphanages anywhere in the world – and the resulting publications, even more work is happening in other countries. And with so many children to advocate for, Chris enjoys working with doctoral students at the School of Education and giving them opportunities to make a difference in the world as well.
“Currently I’m working with three doctoral students, and one actually accompanied me to China. Other students are working on their own projects, which helps provide insight into other children’s distressed situations,” concludes Chris. “We enjoy being an active part of the School of Education and providing students with a very unique educational and research experience. And because we receive requests from around the world, you never know from where the next amazing opportunity to impact a child’s life will come!”