Presented on: Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 11:30am-12:30pm (CT)

Pediatric stress and adversity have a vital link with early brain and child development. This connection can lead to adverse health outcomes in childhood and across the life course, negatively affecting physical health, socioemotional development, and educational achievement.  During this webinar, we discussed evidence-based recommendations from APHA, AAP, and NAPNAP. Because pediatricians, pediatric nurses, and nurse practitioners work to prevent childhood diseases during health supervision visits and with anticipatory guidance, the early detection and management of socioeconomic barriers and stress is an important, emerging component of pediatric scope of practice. An introduction was made of an innovative model of care that includes merging the science of early childhood development and consumer behavior to meet the needs of the modern-day patient and family.

Health professional training also traditionally has not integrated the expanding neurodevelopmental science of early brain development and poverty into formal education. This interdisciplinary workshop will bring forth two ongoing educational innovations in pediatric health which, are integrating the expanding neurodevelopmental sciences of early brain development and poverty into the knowledge and practice pediatric nurse practitioners by intentionally expanding their knowledge in health equity to ensure physical, developmental and relational health of all children.

• Point 1 – provide clinicians a spectrum of tools to address pediatric stress and adversity in their daily clinical practice.  Participants will come away from the webinar with new and immediately accessible skills to implement practices with their patients.
• Point 2 – introduce a new model of pediatric care which clinicians at every level can contribute to significantly. This new model will offer thoughts on digital integration, physical space, assessment protocols, innovative diagnostics, ancillary services, and deployment of evidence-based interventions.

Presented by:

Ashley Darcy Mahoney, PhD, NNP-BC

Dr. Ashley Darcy Mahoney is an associate professor of nursing and the director of infant research at George Washington University’s Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders Institute, Dr. Darcy-Mahoney advances the body of research in infant health and developmental outcomes in high-risk infants with a focus on understanding the early brain and development trajectories in this population. Dr. Darcy-Mahoney is a fellow of the American Academy of Nurses, Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Nurse Faculty Scholar, and a current Josiah Macy Scholar.

Michelle Stephens, PhD, CPNP

Dr. Michelle Stephens is the co-founder of Oath Health. As a Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Future of Nursing Scholar, her doctoral research focused on understanding stress reactivity during early childhood through cardiac measurements of the autonomic nervous system. Her life’s work is to pursue the development and implementation of a comprehensive stress diagnostic tool. Understanding an individual’s allostatic load, beginning prenatally, can allow for more accurate health interventions to prevent early morbidity and mortality related to stress with the possibility of radically extending life.

Hosted by the National Collaborative for Education to Address the Social Determinants of Health