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Christopher and Gretchen Blunt

Gretchen and Christopher Blunt

The Blunt Family Childhood Trauma Research Fund

Christopher and Gretchen Blunt established The Blunt Family Childhood Trauma Research Fund which provides support for students studying factors affecting the psychological well-being of children.

Hannah Clark, a third year doctoral student in clinical psychology in Fall 2015, received support for her research from the Blunt Family Childhood Trauma Research Fund. Hannah worked with groups of Spanish-speaking children ages five to twelve in a program called the Latino Kids’ Club. She helped children who have experienced trauma at home begin to thrive through a ten week intervention of individual attention. The work helped the children use art to cope with their trauma and look forward to a better future. Hannah says the experience, “ignited anew my passion to serve children who have experienced traumatic events in their lives.”

Hannah Clark

While her work with the Latino Kids’ Club is ongoing, Hannah sought to broaden the scope of her work by developing an adaptation of her intervention appropriate for other cultural populations. The Blunt Family Childhood Trauma Research Fund has been instrumental in allowing Hannah to expand her work. A randomized control trial of the adapted intervention is underway, made a reality thanks to the funding provided by the Blunt Family endowment.

In Spring 2019, Andrea Mora, a third year doctoral student in the joint program in Social Work and Psychology, received support for her research from the Blunt Family Childhood Trauma Research Fund. Because of this award, Andrea was able to work this past summer on a research project which focused on understanding how exposure to violence and trauma affect Latina/o youth. Andrea, along with two undergraduate students, Ashley Harvey and Kristen Cross, analyzed data from the “After-School Activity Interview Study” (ASIS), to understand how Latino/a youth talk about and experience traumatic incidents, and how their involvement in after-school activities influence their exposure. Their current project aims to expand the conceptualization of community violence exposure to include sexual harassment, thereby giving voice to Latina adolescent girls – a population that has been overlooked in the community violence literature.

Andrea Mora

Andrea says that “the award validated for me the importance of continuing this work and inspires me to continue to mentor emerging scholars interested in research and in giving voice to poor, urban children's experiences.” Andrea plans to share her results in presentations at national conferences and in journal publications, demonstrating again that the Blunt Family’s generosity can have far-reaching effects.