Theresa S. Betancourt

Theresa S. Betancourt is the inaugural Salem Professor in Global Practice at the Boston College School of Social Work and Director of the Research Program on Children and Adversity (RPCA). Her primary research interest is to understand the protective processes that contribute to risk and resilience in the mental health and development of children and adolescents facing adversity in a variety of cultures and settings. Dr. Betancourt has led initiatives to adapt and test evidence-based behavioral and parenting interventions for children and families facing adversity; in recent years her work has expanded to implementation science initiatives to scale out evidence-based interventions in low resource settings both in the US and globally including the integration of a family home visiting intervention (Sugira Muryango) to promote early childhood development and prevent violence in Rwanda as linked to social protection systems and group mental health interventions in Sierra Leone integrated into entrepreneurship programs. In addition, Dr. Betancourt is the Principal Investigator of a 20-year intergenerational study of war affected youth and their children and families in post-conflict Sierra Leone. Dr. Betancourt has also been engaged in community-based participatory research on promoting mental health and family functioning among Somali Bantu, Bhutanese and Afghan resettling families in the U.S.