 What is the value of having a world-class public research university in your city? What impact does such a university have on individuals and families in the community? To answer that question, consider the story of just one University of Minnesota professor, Dr. Dante Cicchetti, whose work as founder and director of the Mt. Hope Family Center in New York has helped thousands of families sidestep the pitfalls of violence, abuse, and poverty.
Dr. Cicchetti earned his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. As a graduate student he became interested in an emerging academic field started here, developmental psychopathology, which utilizes psychology, biology, genetics, and sociology to study normal and abnormal child development. He went on to become widely regarded as the leading scholar in this field in the world today, making extraordinary contributions to our understanding of the effects of poverty, abuse, neglect, depression, and mental retardation on child development and emotional attachment.
Cicchetti taught at Harvard and at the University of Rochester in New York, where he founded a unique facility that provides center-based child care and home-based support services to children and families in need, trains university students to work with families in the community, and conducts cutting-edge research to make mental health services for children and families even more effective. Cicchetti was determined to make a real difference in the lives of at-risk children and their families – “I didn’t want simply to identify causes for abnormal development but to apply that knowledge to create effective interventions that could bring about real change for children and families and address the issues people struggle to cope with daily.” His track record at Mt. Hope is unparalleled; in 2003, 96% of all families receiving therapeutic services at Mt. Hope avoided indicated referrals to child protection, and 97% of the children avoided foster care placement.
Jay Belsky, director of the Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues at Birkbeck University of London, said the following about the Mt. Hope Family Center:
“Not only is the Mt. Hope Center today the world’s leading research site for the study of child abuse and neglect –and so much more–but it is also a foundational support system in the community. The City of Rochester and the State of New York rely upon it to provide center-based child care and home-based support services to children and families in need.”
A mother who participated in a Mt. Hope program with her child commented to the therapist, “I wish this program would never end. I have found so much support.”
Dr. Cicchetti has now returned to Minnesota and joined the University as a faculty member in both the Institute of Child Development in the College of Education and the Department of Psychiatry in the Medical School. His interdisciplinary work will improve our understanding of human development and turn research into effective interventions that will improve the lives of children and families in our community.
Cicchetti plans to open a facility, the Family Center, which will replicate successful Mt. Hope programs. The Family Center, which will partner with Northpoint Health and Wellness, will be located in North Minneapolis and offer services such as after-school programs, summer camps, parent-child therapy, parenting classes, foster family treatment, and therapy for emotionally fragile children and dysfunctional families. At the same time, the Family Center will provide University students and other professionals and practitioners the opportunity to work with children and families in a state-of-the-art facility that is a part of the community.
How can a major public research university make a difference in the lives of Minnesota’s citizens? One of the ways is by training graduate students like Dante Cicchetti to conduct visionary research, translate it into groundbreaking treatments, then design and provide effective services for communities like North Minneapolis.
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