Schedule

Friday, January 10th

6:00-6:30 PM Registration and Refreshments

Life Sciences Center Lobby

6:30- 6:50 PM Welcome and Introduction

Life Sciences Center Room 100

N. Bruce Duthu, Samson Occom Professor of Native American Studies Dartmouth College

Natalie Walsh & Kennedy Jensen, Geisel Medical Students, Conference Organizers

6:50- 7:40 PM Dawnland film screening

Life Sciences Center Room 100

What to expect: A documentary about cultural survival and stolen children: inside the first truth and reconciliation commission for Native Americans

7:40- 8:00 PM Film Q&A

Life Sciences Center Room 100

Saturday, January 11th

7:30-8:15 AM Breakfast

Life Sciences Center Lobby

8:15-8:30 AM Welcome and Opening Remarks

Life Sciences Center Room 100

Dr. Sarah Johansen, Geisel Physicians For Human Rights Faculty Adviser

Natalie Walsh, Kennedy Jensen, and Arvind Suresh, Conference Organizers

8:30-9:10 AM The Rights of the Child
Life Sciences Center Room 100

Dr. Steven Chapman, Director, Boyle Community Pediatrics Program; CHaD General Pediatrician; Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Geisel

What to expect: Providing context for children's right to health, history, and implications and establishing a working vocabulary for the day.

9:15-10:10 AM The Road Ahead: Challenges at Home and Abroad: Keynote Address
Life Sciences Center Room 100

Lola Adedokun, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Program Director for Child Well-Being and Director for the African Health Initiative

What to expect: Lola Adedokun will broadly discuss major challenges for children’s health through the dual lenses of her work in global health and domestic programs.

10:10-10:20 AM Coffee Break

Life Sciences Center Lobby

10:20-11:45 AM Panel: Maternal Health & Childhood

Life Sciences Center Room 100
Elizabeth Carpenter-Song, Dartmouth Department of Anthropology
Zaneta Thayer, Dartmouth Department of Anthropology
Dr. Daisy Goodman, DHMC Mom’s in Recovery

What to expect: Exploring issues mothers face in adverse life situations and the organizations working to help them. Elizabeth Carpenter-Song is an anthropologist who works with mothers struggling with homelessness. Daisy Goodman is a leader of the Mom’s in Recovery program, helping mothers who have struggled with addiction. Finally, Zaneta Thayer’s work explores how maternal stress during pregnancy affects neonatal health outcomes.

11:40-11:50 AM Audience Photo in LSC 100

11:50-12:30 PM Conversation with an Expert: Child Advocacy and Protection

Life Sciences Center Room 100
Resmiye Oral, MD, Director of Child Advocacy Program at CHaD

What to expect: Exploring issues of child abuse and neglect and how protection from harm is a child's right. The first half of the session will be focused on an overview of the Child Advocacy & Protection program at Dartmouth-Hitchcock and its activities including abuse prevention, legal case review, expert testimony, training, and research. The second half of the session will be opened up for conversation. Bring your questions!

12:30-1:15 PM Lunch & Local Service Organization Tabling Session

Life Sciences Center Lobby and Atrium

What to expect: Use this time to meet the men and women dedicated to these issues right here in the Upper Valley. Learn about local organizations working for children's rights and opportunities to get involved with issues close to your heart!

Good Beginnings
National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools (NCSECS)
Children’s Literacy Foundation (CLiF)
The Family Place
United Valley Interfaith Project (UVIP)
Upper Valley Haven
WISE
Upper Valley Special Needs Support Center
TLC Family Resource Center
Migrant Justice Milk with Dignity Campaign

1:15-2:00 PM Breakout Panel Sessions: Cycle 1- Choose 1 of 2

Please note the room locations

Equity in Action - The Rights of Children with Disabilities

Life Sciences Center Room 200
Sophie Frey & Becca Thomson Thayer 89/90 Students Sensory-Safe Pod
Laura Perez, Executive Director, Upper Valley Special Needs Support Center

What to expect: Highlighting ongoing work in the Upper Valley serving children with disabilities and their families, covering existing needs, connections to children's rights, and working to fill the gaps in need. Laura Perez will speak to her personal encounters with these challenges and what brought her to her current work with SNSC. Sophie Frey and Becca Thomson will then share their ongoing work with Laura Perez to develop a Sensory-Safe pod for pediatric patients at CHaD.

Tackling Technology and Addiction

Life Sciences Center Room 201
William Hudenko, Dartmouth Department of Psychology
Elizabeth Stein, Tuck School of Business
Dr. Susanne E. Tanski, Section Chief, CHaD General Academic Pediatrics; Associate Director, C. Everett Koop Center at Dartmouth; Vice Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Geisel

What to expect: Habits children develop can have life-long ramifications on focus and learning. William Hudenko will discuss his work on technology addictions. Dr. Susanne Tanski will cover some of her research on vaping. Finally, Elizabeth Stein will share her experience working on a mindfulness project in Flint, Michigan to combat such patterns.

2:10-3:00 PM Breakout Panel Sessions: Cycle 2- Choose 1 of 2

Education is Empowerment

Life Sciences Center Room 200
Children’s Literacy Foundation (CLiF)
Donna Coch, Dartmouth College Education Department
Cindy Perry, The Upper Valley Haven

What to expect: This panel seeks to highlight unmet need in child education and the ways in which that might potentially echo through health and wellness outcomes later in life. Under that umbrella, Cynthia Perry will speak to the need for trauma-informed perspectives in the classroom; Donna Coch will discuss how reading skills relate to life outcomes in measures of wellbeing, and Duncan McDougall will share what his organization, the Children’s Literacy Foundation (CLiF) is doing to fill existing gaps.

Neonatal Health at the Frontier

Life Sciences Center Room 201
Dr. Alka Dev, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Geisel
Dr. Juliette Madan - Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Geisel

What to expect: This session explores neonatal health at two frontiers. Dr. Dev will speak from the perspective of her work bringing neonatal care to Haiti and supporting that care through natural disaster. Dr. Madan will speak about a frontier of research and scientific hot topic: exploring the neonatal microbiome and how very early exposures or lack thereof may determine health outcomes later in life.

3:00-3:15 PM Break

3:15-4:00 PM Panel: Rights of Children in Situations of Distress

Life Sciences Center Room 100
Dr. Amer Al-Nimr, Director, CHaD Global Health Program; Section Chief, CHaD Gastroenterology; Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and of Internal Medicine, Geisel School of Medicine
Eric Edmonds, Dartmouth College Dept of Economics - Ending Child Labor
N. Bruce Duthu, Samson Occom Professor of Native American Studies Dartmouth College

What to expect: This panel will take a deep dive into the effects of severely adverse life situations on children’s wellbeing. Dr. Amer Al-Nimr will discuss the experiences of refugee children. Eric Edmonds will share some of his work on ending child labor. Finally, Bruce Duthu will discuss the impacts of cultural oppression on generations of Indigenous peoples. From three very different academic angles, panel members will help us understand the complexity of these issues, the systems that allow an perpetuate them, and what some potential solutions may be.

4:00-4:30 PM Thank You and Wrap Up

Life Sciences Center Room 100