Psychology Distinguished Professor Stephen Hinshaw has been awarded a $3 million gift from the Charles Schwab Foundation aimed at fundamentally enhancing UC Berkeley’s capacity in early childhood development and learning.
The 5-year award, shared through UCSF’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, will support a series of initiatives at UC Berkeley’s Psychology Department and beyond, focused on specialized training, evidence-based policy and critical research.
“This is a time of renewed and much-needed emphasis in research, education and policy about the crucial importance of early childhood for our nation's and society's well-being and productivity,” Hinshaw said. “The campus is in a time of major efforts in this regard.”
One way Berkeley is participating in these efforts is through “The Developing Child” summer minor, an interdisciplinary program for undergraduates who wish to pursue careers related to early childhood development, including teaching, policy, research and advocacy. The gift will help to support new cohorts of students campuswide who are interested in pursuing this minor.
Additinally, the gift will help to fund an interdisciplinary graduate student certificate program that allows participants to specialize in early childhood policy. The support will also revitalize the UC Berkeley Early Childhood Education Program’s re-commitment to a lab-school model, which combines student learning with research and teacher training — to be made available to trainees around the country and world.
Schwab’s support of these programs will “enable Cal to become a national leader in the education of the next generation of leaders in the early childhood field,” Hinshaw said.
Alongside the support of existing on-campus programs, a portion of the gift will be used to launch a new campuswide initiative called Equity and Excellence in Early Childhood (E3C), led by attorney Katie Albright at the Berkeley School of Education.
“It's now well known that countries who promote early child development thrive across subsequent years,” Hinshaw said. “Through E3C fellowships, a new generation of transformational leaders in early childhood will be created and trained, with the goal of integrating research, policy and education in the early childhood arena.”
Furthermore, the Schwab gift will also support the expansion of research on long-term outcomes of neurodevelopmental disorders like ADHD, with specialized focus on the long-neglected population of girls and women.
Berkeley researchers, particularly Hinshaw’s team, have established that girls with such conditions are at high risk for unplanned pregnancy, experiences of sexual violence and self-injurious behavior, Hinshaw said.
“What’s needed now is the translation of such knowledge into preventive efforts earlier in development, including the promotion of family harmony, enhanced peer relationships, academic skills and the building of strengths,” Hinshaw added.
Hinshaw’s own family experiences with severe mental illness — misdiagnosed and professionally silenced — propelled his own career in clinical psychology, as documented in his award-winning memoir, “Another Kind of Madness: A Journey through the Stigma and Hope of Mental Illness.” Stigma surrounding early-appearing learning and behavioral problems in children, as well as trauma, can prevent help-seeking and treatment, he said.
The core aim of this funding, he said, is to “reduce the stigma associated with differences and deviations in child development, to promote thriving for all” and “boost understanding, compassion and relevant policy, so that preventive and treatment services can be marshaled.”