2018 CSCH Encore Conference and Stage One Winners

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On September 24, 2018, the UConn Collaboratory on School and Child Health held its second Encore Conference. The Encore conference provided an opportunity for participants to learn about work related to school and/or child health that CSCH affiliates had presented previously at external conferences. It included a poster “encore” session (sharing work already presented in another setting), time for networking, and an on-the-spot seed grant competition.

The conference was open to all people that were CSCH affiliates (faculty, postdocs, students, community partners) and faculty, student, staff and community affiliates were in attendance from many different UConn schools, colleges, departments, centers and community organizations. Following a welcome from CSCH Steering Committee member Jennifer McGarry, affiliates were given the opportunity to peruse posters, network, and find collaborators for those interested in making seed grant pitches. Participants reconvened to hear groups of people make 3-minute pitches for the seed grant competition. Using an online voting tool, participants then voted for the favorite pitches. The top five winners will move on to stage 2 and were:

    1. Students Junyoung Cho (Educational Leadership) and Sanggyu Byun (Educational Psychology)
      Pitch: Promoting Self-regulation skills for children with Autism by utilizing Taekwondo (Asian martial arts)
    2. Drs. Rebecca A. Campbell (Curriculum and Instruction), Xiaomei Cong (Nursing), Ruth Lucas (Nursing), and Miriam Valdovinos (Social Work)
      Pitch: Healthcare Needs and Access for Connecticut Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker Schoolchildren
    3. Dr. Beth Russell (HDFS) and Tammy Freeberg, MSW (The Village for Families & Children)
      Pitch: Truancy Prevention Efforts to Interrupt the School to Prison Pipeline
    4. Timothy McKay, MFT and Dr. Ryan Watson (HDFS)
      Pitch: Exploration of transgender and non-binary youth school-based psychosocial health and well-being utilizing data from the 2017 UConn/HRC LGBT Teen Survey
    5. Students Cassandra Therriault (Educational Leadership) and Emma Zuk, ATC (Kinesiology)
      Pitch: Intramural sports in an urban school aimed at improving physical literacy

Final stage 2 winners will be announced in November 2018.