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Society for Research in Child Development Patrice L. Engle Dissertation Grant for Global Early Child Development The Patrice L. Engle Dissertation Grant provides support for students interested in a career in global early child development who are from or doing research in low- or middle-income countries. The Grant includes US $5,000 to support dissertation research and a 2-year student membership to SRCD. Applicant Eligibility and Responsibility 1. Dissertation research in global early child development with a one-year Grant for $5,000. The developmental focus of the research should include children, prenatal to 6 years of age living in low- or middle- income countries, as defined by the World Bank.  Potential topics could include (but not limited to): The effectiveness of different models of parenting support on early child development. Examination of how child care programs promote child development and family involvement. The effectiveness of 2-generation programs that provide maternal and child support. Innovative strategies to integrate programs that promote early child development with health or nutritional services for young children. Innovative strategies to integrate child development interventions with social protection services or programs to promote maternal mental health or education. Innovative strategies to involve fathers and other extended family members in early child development programs. Development of measurement strategies, indicators, and assessment tools for children and family interactions that can be implemented with reliability in low resource settings. Strategies for effective scale-up of demonstration programs.

DLS supports fundamental research that increases our understanding of cognitive, linguistic, social, cultural, and biological processes related to children's and adolescents' development and learning.  Research supported by this program will add to our basic knowledge of how people learn and the underlying developmental processes that support learning, with the objective of leading to better educated children and adolescents who grow up to take productive roles as workers and as citizens. Among the many research topics supported by DLS are: developmental cognitive neuroscience; development of higher-order cognitive processes; transfer of knowledge from one domain or situation to another; use of molecular genetics to study continuities and discontinuities in development; development of peer relations and family interactions; multiple influences on development, including the impact of family, school, community, social institutions, and the media; adolescents' preparation for entry into the workforce; cross-cultural research on development and learning; and the role of cultural influences and demographic characteristics on development. Additional priorities include research that: incorporates multidisciplinary, multi-method, microgenetic, and longitudinal approaches; develops new methods, models, and theories for studying learning and development; and integrates different processes (e.g., learning, memory, emotion), levels of analysis (e.g., behavioral, social, neural), and time scales (e.g. infancy, middle childhood, adolescence).

The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to award one cooperative agreement to develop a state-of-the-art foster/adoptive parent training program to include intensive preparation and development components that reflect the capacities required of successful foster/adoptive parents. This is intended to be a product that could be utilized by all states, tribes, and territories and consistently applied wherever implemented. Development of this program would include research on the common characteristics of individuals and their foster/adoptive families that have succeeded in terms of well-being and stability. Common characteristics of families that are more likely to foster and/or adopt harder to place children/youth and are successful and remain committed to the relationship will be identified and integrated into the program. The program would be inclusive of development, training, and capacity needs of individuals/families that are interested in becoming foster parents, as well as those who are interested in fostering with the intention to eventually adopt; therefore many concepts would be in common for foster and adoptive parents. There would be particular focus for foster parents on working on reunification efforts with birth parents and for adoption there would be particular focus on the common adoption issues pertinent to all types of adoption, i.e., child welfare, private domestic, and international. The initial year would entail an extensive review of all current training and preparation programs and include new intervention strategies that foster/adoptive parents should be skilled in as they develop as foster and adoptive parents. The initial year would also involve the basic development of the new intensive training modules.

The award, which carries a grant of $4,000, is awarded annually to assist an IRA member in the investigation of reading-related problems and to encourage international professional development activities carried out in countries outside North America. The award represents a specific means for working toward as many as three articulated goals of the association, including advocacy, professional development, and emerging global issues. 1) Advocacy: Through the Constance McCullough Award the association seeks to promote universal access to literacy and to provide leadership in support of adequate funding for literacy programs on an international basis. 2) Professional Development: Through the award the association seeks to enhance and improve professional development of literacy educators on an international basis - professional development that supports programs and processes in response to expressed needs and that responds quickly to identify professional needs. 3) Emerging Global Issues: The association seeks to identify and provide leadership on emerging globally significant literacy issues such as access to primary education for all, access to current materials, and assessment of literacy levels.

This Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) seeks opportunities to co-create, co-design, co-invest, and collaborate in the research, development, piloting, testing, and scaling of innovative, practical and cost-effective interventions to address Zimbabwe's Development Challenges. Those Development Challenges may include opportunities to increase the number of Zimbabweans who live longer, healthier lives. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) invites individuals, organizations, and companies to participate with the USAID Mission in Zimbabwe (USAID/Zimbabwe) to create more strategic, focused and results- oriented solutions to respond to the development challenges in Zimbabwe.

ACF is funding a cooperative agreement to sponsor the Child Development Research Fellowship that gives child development professionals from the academic research community the opportunity to experience policy research relevant to programs serving low income children and families. The goal of the fellowship program is to expose researchers to policy environments, particularly at the federal level, whereby they gain skills and expertise for policy-relevant research. The program is intended to stimulate the fellows' knowledge of child development research and evaluation, particularly regarding services for low income children and families, and to inform their process of developing long-term, policy-relevant research and evaluation agendas. The public will benefit from the increased availability of researchers highly skilled and experienced in policy- and program-relevant research and evaluation. Fellows will engage on a full-time basis for a period of one year (with a possible second or third year at the discretion of the grantee and depending on funding availability). Fellows will be exposed to the broader child development policy environment, particularly at the federal level, and to the policy research community through activities organized and conducted by the grantee. The cooperative agreement will require active partnership between the successful applicant and OPRE.

The Brady Education Foundation seeks to close the achievement/opportunity gap for children at risk for poor school outcomes due to environmental factors associated with poverty. To advance this mission, the foundation is accepting stage-one applications for projects related to the development and evaluation of programs that are consistent with a strength-based approach and show promise of being feasible, effective, and sustainable. 1) Program Development: One-year grants will be awarded to projects aimed at developing and testing the feasibility of new programs that promote positive cognitive and/or achievement outcomes for children (birth through 18 years) from underserved groups and/or low-resourced communities. Priority will be given to programs/projects that represent strong collaborative relationships between researchers, practitioners, and other community stakeholders (as appropriate), and where the community/population being studied is reflected by the composition of the project's leadership team; programs/projects consistent with strength-based approaches rather than deficit models; programs/projects that leverage other funding; and/or programs/projects that, in addition to showing promise of being effective, show promise of being affordable, accessible, and sustainable. Past Program Development grants have ranged between $25,000 and $276,000.

The vision of the Episcopal Health Foundation is a diocese where people, parishes, institutions, and communities are connected in service to creating healthy communities for all. According to the foundation, a strong, responsive caregiver-child relationship and the infant brain development that results from that relationship maximize a child's physical development, communication, and social skills and strengthen his/her ability to mitigate the long-term effects of stressful life events and circumstances. To that end, the foundation is inviting applications for its Build the Foundation for a Healthy Life by Investing in Early Childhood Brain Development initiative. Through the initiative, grants will be awarded to community-based clinics and organizations that embrace the importance of early childhood brain development and prioritize primary prevention work with vulnerable families, beginning before or at the birth of their children.

The purpose of this FOA would be to establish, by awarding one cooperative agreement, a National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (NCWWI) to advance federal priorities to improve safety, permanency, and well-being by building the capacity of child welfare professionals and improving the organizations that recruit, train, supervise, manage, and retain them. The Workforce Institute will play a national leadership role in the field of child welfare in the following broad areas: (1)Demonstrating how university partnerships support workforce development; (2) Implementing organizational interventions to improve workforce recruitment and retention; (3) Providing leadership training across the child welfare career spectrum; (4) Developing cross system approaches to improve worker and child outcomes; and (5) Building evidence of best practices in workforce development. A broad range of activities will be undertaken by the Workforce Institute to promote effective child welfare practice, enhance agency efforts to create supportive work environments, and improve worker recruitment and retention outcomes by: Implementing an innovative, comprehensive and integrated organizational, educational, and professional development approach to effective child welfare workforce development building on the last two iterations of NCWWI work; Implementing effective workforce organizational interventions that result in improved agency climate, worker preparation, recruitment, and retention outcomes for agencies; such as reduction in emotional stress and worker burnout, increased length of stay for workers, changes in worker attitude and satisfaction, increased recruitment, etc.; Demonstrating expertise in collecting and disseminating information about effective and promising workforce practices in innovative ways;

The purpose of this Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is to encourage applications that will develop and validate tools and resources to facilitate the detailed analysis of brain microconnectivity. Novel and augmented techniques are sought that will ultimately be broadly accessible to the neuroscience community for the interrogation of microconnectivity in healthy and diseased brains of model organisms and humans. Development of technologies that will significantly drive down the cost of connectomics would enable routine mapping of the microconnectivity on the same individuals that have been analyzed physiologically, or to compare normal and pathological tissues in substantial numbers of multiple individuals to assess variability.  Advancements in both electron microscopy (EM) and super resolution light microscopic approaches are sought. Applications that propose to develop approaches that break through existing technical barriers to substantially improve current capabilities are highly encouraged. Proof-of-principle demonstrations and/or reference datasets enabling future development are welcome, as are improved approaches for automated segmentation and analysis strategies of neuronal structures in EM images.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Administration for Native Americans (ANA) announces the availability of Fiscal Year 2018 funds for the Native Youth Initiative for Leadership, Empowerment, and Development (I-LEAD).I-LEAD is a special initiative established under ANA’s Social and Economic Development Strategies (SEDS) program. I-LEAD provides support for community-based initiatives that empower Native youth to address priorities identified by such youth and include youth-focused leadership. As well projects are funded to develop models, approaches and strategies to foster resiliency and build upon Native youth's inherent capacities to thrive. Native youth will contribute to the accomplishment of objectives that promote economic and social self-sufficiency for Native Americans, contribute to community well-being, increase the capacity of tribal governments, strengthen families, and implement culturally appropriate strategies to meet the social service needs of Native Americans.As an agency within the ACF, ANA is providing this unique funding opportunity as a special initiative of the SEDS program. The I-LEAD program will ensure project funding is provided to support youth-driven and youth-focused services and activities related to social and economic development, in order to promote the self-sufficiency of tomorrow’s leaders in Native American communities.

Society for Research in Child Development Victoria S. Levin Grant The grant serves the promising pre-tenured, junior investigator by: 1. Supporting release time from duties during which time the grantee writes and submits an application in the area of early childhood mental health to the NIH. This support compensates the grantee's unit/department for the work from which the grantee is released. Having adequate time to develop and submit a grant application is essential for early career success. 2. Providing travel funds for a trip to NIH to meet program staff. This support helps the grantee develop meaningful contacts with NIH program staff who can guide the application preparation and revision (funding usually requires two application submissions). 3.Providing a pre-review of the candidate's NIH application. This support allows the mentor and grantee to benefit from an external critique of the NIH application prior to its submission. In our experience, this pre-review heightens the chances of early success in the first round of review and the mentor is able to guide the grantee in responding to reviews. Aiming to heighten the chances of early success in achieving federal funding for developmentally-informed research that addresses the early foundations of children's mental health and well-being, the Victoria S. Levin Grant for Early Career Success in Young Children's Mental Health Research was created to honor and carry forward this focus of Victoria S. Levin's life work.

This targeted 5-year cooperative agreement is to be awarded to create a national center of excellence to develop, implement and evaluate curriculum in child welfare agency settings that will: Support the child welfare workforce to better understand social and emotional needs of children and families involved in the child welfare system. Support the child welfare workforce to better screen and assess for social and emotional needs of children and families. Support the child welfare workforce to understand the effective interventions and active ingredients of those interventions and how to ensure children and families receive those interventions. Increase exposure to active ingredients and Evidence Based Practices for agency staff through enhanced curriculum and practicums. Provide professional development opportunities for agency staff by developing, delivering, and evaluating course offerings, continuing education, and certificate programs aimed at addressing the shortage of child welfare practitioners prepared to deliver evidence based child and family treatment. Provide curriculum aimed at assisting case managers to make excellent decisions about how to refer and evaluate the effectiveness of the services provided to the children and families in their care. Develop decision making tools for agency leadership that might assist them in assessing their current mental health service array. These tools would provide direction about the cost and effectiveness of the mental health services in their current service array, assist the administrator in evaluating if the current mental health services are achieving intended outcomes, and provide guidance on best practice in implementing evidence based treatment services.

RGK Foundation awards grants in the broad areas of Education, Community, and Health/Medicine. The Foundation's primary interests within Education include programs that focus on formal K-12 education (particularly mathematics, science and reading), teacher development, literacy, and higher education. Within Community, the Foundation supports a broad range of human services, community improvement, abuse prevention, and youth development programs. Human service programs of particular interest to the Foundation include children and family services, early childhood development, and parenting education. The Foundation supports a variety of Community Improvement programs including those that enhance non-profit management and promote philanthropy and voluntarism. Youth development programs supported by the Foundation typically include after-school educational enrichment programs that supplement and enhance formal education systems to increase the chances for successful outcomes in school and life. The Foundation is also interested in programs that attract female and minority students into the fields of mathematics, science, and technology. The Foundation's current interests in the area of Health/Medicine include programs that promote the health and well-being of children, programs that promote access to health services, and Foundation-initiated programs focusing on ALS.

The Best Buy Foundation seeks to build better futures for youth through technology. To that end, the foundation is inviting proposals for community grants. Grants of up to $15,000 will be awarded in support of equitable, innovative, and impact-driven programs focused on enhancing the lives of youth between the ages of 13 to 18 through technology-enabled curricula. Programs should include hands-on learning opportunities that lead to skills development, engage youth in experimenting and interacting with the latest technologies, and close the digital skills gap; provide teens from underresourced communities with access to innovative technologies and help them become fluent in technological fields while developing skills that better prepare them for future education and career success; and incorporate cutting-edge technology such as computers, digital cameras, video cameras, and professional software, including but not limited to audio production (including music mixing and recording), website development, computer maintenance and repair, UX/UI (user experience/user interface), graphic design and photography 2, cybersecurity, mobile and game app development, 3D animation, programing and coding, virtual reality/ augmented reality, robotics, and green technology.

REISSUE of PAR-18-733 The NIH Common Fund has established the Gabriella Miller Kids First Pediatric Research Program (Kids First) to develop a pediatric research data resource populated by genome sequence and phenotype data that will be of high value for the communities of investigators who study the genetics of childhood cancers and/or structural birth defects. The overall goal of the Gabriella Miller Kids First Pediatric Data Resource is to help researchers understand the underlying mechanisms of these conditions, leading to more refined diagnostic capabilities and ultimately more targeted therapies, as well as to develop an integrated pediatric research data resource by obtaining and aggregating genome sequence and phenotype data for as many relevant structural birth defects and pediatric cancer cohorts as possible and to advance research in this area through the broad sharing of these data with the research community. This FOA is intended to promote meritorious small research projects focused on the development and analyses of childhood cancer and/or structural birth defects datasets that are part of the Kids First Data Resource or could be included in the Kids First Data Resource. Development of statistical methodology appropriate for analyzing genome-wide data relevant to childhood cancer and/or structural birth defects may also be proposed.

The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) issued by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) is to announce the re-competition of the Womens Reproductive Health Research (WHRH) Career Development Program. This national group of mentored institutional career development programs trains junior faculty who have recently completed postgraduate clinical training in obstetrics and gynecology and are committed to an independent research career in women's reproductive health. The goal of this program is to continue to build the national capacity of outstanding junior clinician-investigators who will strengthen the field of obstetrics and gynecology and contribute to the improvement of womens health.

The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to support the development of novel tools and technologies through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program to advance the field of neuroscience research. This FOA specifically supports the development of novel neurotechnologies as well as the translation of technologies developed through the BRAIN initiative or through other funding programs, towards commercialization. Funding can support the iterative refinement of these tools and technologies with the end-user community, with an end-goal of scaling manufacture towards reliable, broad, sustainable dissemination and incorporation into regular neuroscience research.

The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to support the development of novel tools and technologies through the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program to advance the field of neuroscience research. This FOA specifically supports the development of novel neurotechnologies as well as the translation of technologies developed through the BRAIN initiative or through other funding programs, towards commercialization. Funding can support the iterative refinement of these tools and technologies with the end-user community, with an end-goal of scaling manufacture towards reliable, broad, sustainable dissemination and incorporation into regular neuroscience practice.

This broad spectrum FOA is intended to: (1) increase our understanding of how music affects the brain, body, and behavior and (2) use that knowledge to develop evidence-based music interventions to enhance health or treat specific diseases and disorders.  Proposed R01 projects can investigate how music is processed by or modifies the brain, or how it affects specific biological functions during childhood development and learning, adulthood, and aging.  Projects can also include preliminary interventions that provide a basis for therapeutic interventions. When appropriate, collaborations among basic researchers, technology developers, music intervention experts, or other clinical researchers are highly encouraged.