A Holistic Approach to Helping Kids
Photo by Ciara Crocker
A Holistic Approach to Helping Kids
Dina Castro leads the collaborative BU Wheelock Institute for Early Childhood Well-Being into its second year
Dina Castro knows something about the value of interdisciplinary research. In her quest to understand and improve care and education for bilingual children, she has earned degrees in psychology, public health, and early childhood education and special education. “It allows you to think about solutions for pressing problems that will be more permanent and impactful,”says the professor of teaching and learning. That search for collaborative solutions brought Castro to Wheelock in 2021.
As the director of the BU Wheelock Institute for Early Childhood Well-Being, established in June 2021, Castro has been charged with building the institute’s reputation as a leader by cultivating interdisciplinary research and community-engaged research. It’s a holistic, strengths-based approach that she believes can help address a range of challenges faced by young children today.
“When we think about problems that are affecting children’s well-being, we have to think about research, policies, and programs that can either preserve structural societal problems or promote societal change,” she says. “It’s not only about the child, but also about the surrounding contexts.”
One of the institute’s marquee programs has been its University–Community Partnerships Grant. The institute awarded four research grants in spring 2022, to projects related to stress, oral health inequities, violence prevention in South Africa, and infants at risk for neurodevelopmental disorders. In keeping with the institute’s mission, each project must involve researchers from multiple disciplines as well as partners from the community. The first round of recipients included faculty from Wheelock, the College of Arts & Sciences, School of Dental Medicine, School of Medicine, School of Social Work, and Sargent College, as well as representatives from Boston Public Schools, Newton–Wellesley Hospital, and Head Start.
The institute’s plans also extend beyond facilitating research, to convening scholars, community members, and alumni to share ideas. Among the spring of 2022 events: a presentation about the diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the Boston Children’s Hospital Child Life Services Department and a panel discussion about nature-based education featuring Sarah Besse (’17) and Shela Sinelien (’19).
If you want research that is impactful, we need to go outside of the individual disciplines’ boundaries-and I think the institute sending that message will be important.
For Castro, it’s been a fruitful first year—and now she wants to build on the institute’s early successes. She hopes some of the research projects will grow into pilot studies. She’s also looking to expand the institute’s grant writing efforts, to bring in more external funding, and to support the work of graduate students.
“We are demonstrating to the outside world how you can conduct research that is relevant,” Castro says. “If you want research that is impactful and transformational, we need to go outside of the individual disciplines’ boundaries and include the voices of the community—and I think the institute sending that message will be important.”