Fostering Linkages with the University in Public Policy Engagement

If ever the time was right to build bridges between human development scholars and the discipline’s practitioners in the community in which the university sits, it is now. Despite advances made by scholars and practitioners in early childhood development, child maltreatment and neglect intervention, access to preventive health care, and teen-pregnancy prevention, these complex issues continue to challenge our communities. Sadly, proactive collaboration between practitioners and scholars in their search for solutions is rare. That must change if we are to influence public policy and attract funding that will help us find viable remedies to these social ills.