David J. Schonfeld, MD, is a developmental-behavioral pediatrician and Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Child Study, Yale University School of Medicine. He coordinates the School Crisis Response Initiative of the National Center for Children Exposed to Violence at the Yale Child Study Center.
The School Crisis Response Initiative, which Dr. Schonfeld began in 1991, is a collaboration of the Yale Child Study Center and community mental health professionals, law enforcement representatives, and local and state educational agencies. The program empowers school staff through planning and training in school crisis response, provides consultation to schools in developing their capacities to meet students' and staff's emotional and mental health needs at times of crisis, and provides technical assistance in resolving problems arising in specific crisis situations.
Over the past ten years, the Program has provided training in over half of the school districts in Connecticut and throughout the country, involving tens of thousands of school-related professionals. Dr. Schonfeld has also provided presentations on pediatric bereavement and school crisis response in England, Israel, Japan and Sweden, and has provided technical assistance during hundreds of school crisis events. After the events of September 11th, Dr. Schonfeld and his colleagues began consulting to New York City Public Schools on coordinating school crisis response training for a system of 1200 schools serving over 1.1 million students.
David Schonfeld has presented the work of the program at multiple professional meetings within the past year, including at the 2001 National Conference and Exhibition of the American Academy of Pediatrics in San Francisco, and the Society for Adolescent Medicine annual meeting in Boston.
He has also written commentaries and articles on children and terrorism which appeared within the past year in several professional publications, including Pediatrics, Journal of Adolescent Health, and Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics and has provided numerous workshops to school personnel, lay audiences and professional groups and been interviewed by regional and national print, radio, and television media.
Dr. David Schonfeld is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on Terrorism and recent recipient of the CT Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics Martha F. Leonard Child Advocate Award for his work in school crisis response.
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