Andrew Hsi, MD, has spent most of his medical career trying to help kids who grow up in challenging circumstances to survive – and even thrive.
In the early 1990s, he founded the University of New Mexico’s FOCUS program, which supports young children who are at risk due to prematurity, low birth weight and prenatal exposure to drugs and alcohol. Some also face environmental factors like family substance abuse, mental illness, family violence or unsupported teen parenting.
A professor in the UNM Department of Pediatrics, Hsi recently launched the Institute for Resilience, Health and Justice to explore what combination of traits will lead to the best outcome for a child.
“We want to study how people think about resilience,” Hsi says. “What is it in our community that makes people feel resilient?”
Hsi will join a panel of experts at a symposium on child well-being on Saturday, Oct. 1, hosted by Archbishop John C. Wester of the Diocese of Santa Fe. The event at St. Pius X High School, 5301 St. Joseph’s Dr. NW, will feature keynote speaker M. Rebecca Kilburn, a RAND Corporation economist and nationally known expert on child and family interventions.
[For more of this story, written by Michael Haederle, go to http://hscnews.unm.edu/news/fi...-childhood-adversity]
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