2025 NYZTT Annual Conference 
Adversity and Resilience in Children's First Years: How to Transform the Future of Childhood

Join us in person or online to hear our keynote speakers, Dr. Pat Levitt and Dr. Brenda Jones Harden, delve into the following questions:

• What are adverse child experiences?

• How do these experiences create toxic stress for children and affect their short-term and long-term outcomes?

• What can we do to address these risks for children and their families?

• What are the elements of a system of care that can buffer children from early life adversity and toxic stress? 

Part 1 with Keynote Speaker Dr. Pat Levitt:

Young children who experience adverse experiences (ACEs) (e.g., abuse, neglect, parental incarceration) experience a toxic stress response that is associated with poor health outcomes over the lifespan. ACEs impact young children’s brain, immune, and metabolic systems in ways that have implications for their longer-term health. As a field, we would like to have the capacity to identify children experiencing toxic stress as early as possible to promote early interventions that support development. This presentation will focus on sharing data from more than 300 mother-child pairs over the first two years of life. The presentation will focus on making information about the science and measurement of early toxic stress understandable for professionals and parents. Findings will be explored that show relations between changes in biological measures over time and child neurodevelopmental outcomes, highlighting how children’s experience of ACEs, biology, and development are linked. This presentation will give the audience powerful information about the connection between children’s lived experience and their biology, health, and development.

Part 2 with Keynote speaker Dr. Brenda Jones Harden: 
Building upon the cutting-edge science of toxic stress shared in the first presentation, the second presentation will focus on what we can do to combat toxic stress.   How can we help children experiencing toxic stress? What are the elements needed for an early childhood system of care that can buffer children from early life adversity and toxic stress? Specifically, the presentation will focus on how to best prevent mental health and developmental problems (Primary prevention: e.g., universal home visiting, early care and education), efforts to respond to early indicators of problems (Secondary prevention: e.g., parenting programs, targeted home visiting), and intervention for existing problems (Tertiary prevention: e.g., infant/early childhood mental health interventions). We will explore how well these interventions work for infants and toddlers and their potential to promote positive outcomes or resilience in young children exposed to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).

Register here to attend in person or virtually.

Keynote Speakers' Bios: 

Pat Levitt, PhD

BA University of Chicago

PhD University of California San Diego

Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale University

Dr. Levitt is the Simms/Mann Chair in Developmental Neurogenetics, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) and WM Keck Provost Professor of Neurogenetics, Keck School of Medicine of USC. Levitt is Chief Scientific Officer, Senior Vice President and Director, The Saban Research Institute at CHLA. Levitt is a developmental neuroscientist performing basic research studies to determine the genetic and environmental contributions to building healthy and adaptive cognitive, social and emotional circuits of the brain across the lifespan. Clinical research studies focus on infants, toddlers and their caregivers to discover objective measures of risk for toxic stress and identify resilience factors. Levitt is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and appointed to the Independent Citizens’ Oversite Committee, the governing board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Levitt serves as co-Scientific Director of the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, engaging with policymakers in over 40 states and internationally to invest in children’s programs as early as possible. He has published over 330 scientific papers. Levitt is on the editorial board of 5 scientific journals and serves as a Science Mentor (with his granddaughter) on the Frontiers For Young Minds journal.

Brenda Jones Harden, PhD 

BRENDA JONES HARDEN is the Ruth Harris Ottman Professor of Child and Family Welfare at the Columbia University School of Social Work and Professor Emerita of Human Development at the University of Maryland. She directs the Prevention and Early Adversity Research Laboratory, where she and her research team examine the developmental and mental health needs of young children who have experienced early adversity and toxic stress, particularly those who have been maltreated, are in foster care, or have experienced other forms of trauma. A particular focus is preventing maladaptive outcomes in these populations through early childhood programs, which she has implemented and evaluated. Dr. Jones Harden is a scientist-practitioner who uses research to improve the quality and effectiveness of child and family services and to inform child and family policy, especially in the areas of home visiting, early care and education, infant/early childhood mental health, and child welfare. She is the immediate past-president of the Board of Zero to Three, and serves on various federal, state, and local advisory boards. She received a PhD in developmental and clinical psychology from Yale University and a Master’s in Social Work from New York University.

Register here to attend in person or virtually.