Lisette M. DeSouza News

• Family Communication About Dating is Changing During the Pandemic
  

  A recent study highlights changes in the ways parents talk to their teens about dating and relationships during COVID-19.
• New NIH Grant Will Fund Study of Fathers' Communication with Their Teens About Sex
  

  September 29, 2020

  Jennifer Grossman, Ph.D., received a grant from the NIH to study whether fathers’ communication with their teenage children can protect teens from risky sexual behavior.
• Conversations with Extended Family Can Boost Teen Sexual Health
  

  A study by Jennifer M. Grossman, Ph.D., explored how extended families support teens’ sexual health.
• Presentations & Convenings: Out-of-School Time
  

  Georgia Hall, Ph.D., WCW associate director, senior research scientist, and director of the National Institute on Out-of-School Time, presented at the U.S. Department of Education 21st Century Community Learning Centers Conference for State Education Administrators in July. Hall joined experts from the U.S. Office of Safe and Healthy Students and the Pennsylvania Education Department to present on “Afterschool Program Safety and Health.”
• Presentations & Convenings: Adolescents, Identity, and Social Media
  

  Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., WCW senior research scientist and director of the Youth, Media, & Wellbeing Research Lab, co-presented a poster with her WCW Class of ’67 Intern Rebecca Leu (Class of 2019) entitled, “Adolescent Social Media Use and Body Image: Associations with depression, social anxiety, and peers,” at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association (APA) in San Francisco, CA, in August.
• New Findings, Publications, Presentations: Youth and Adolescent Development
  

  

  
  

  From afterschool programs to conversations about sex, research from WCW recognizes the profound ways adults can ensure healthy adolescent development.
• Wellesley News: It’s March, But Is It Madness?
  Georgia Hall, Laura Pappana, and Lissette DeSouza of WCW are referenced in this article that discusses gender inequality in sports.
• Short Takes, Pilot Grant Awarded to Study Adolescents’ Media Use
  

  Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development awarded Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D, research associate at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW), a $100,000 pilot grant to study parent and peer influences on social media use in early adolescence as well as the implications for psychosocial and behavioral health. Working with co-principal investigator Megan Moreno, M.D., M.P.H., academic division chief in General Pediatrics/Adolescent Medicine, and vice chair of Digital Health at the Children’s Hospital at University of Wisconsin, Madison, Charmaraman will collect data from middle school youth and their parents in the Greater Boston area. The primary objectives of this one-year study are to: (1) investigate the developmental processes of social media use during the pubertal transition to adolescence, highlighting factors that are likely to have explanatory power in understanding the relationships between social media use, social context, and psychosocial and behavioral health; (2) use multiple reporters on adolescent social media use in a mixed-method design utilizing matched parent-to-student survey and student social media site data; and (3) build theory on mechanisms for how, when, and why early initiation into social technologies co-occurs with behavioral health outcomes, moderated by peer and family influences.