Dear ISSBD Members, Colleagues and Friends,
As I write, we continue to live with the global pandemic
that emerged at the beginning of the year. These are indeed
challenging times. I hope you are all doing as well and coping
as well as can be expected with the difficult times in which we
are living.
While it seems incredible, in many countries we face, again,
rising cases of the COVID-19 virus. We have all had personal
experiences related to the pandemic, which have varied from
minimally to maximally stressful. We have lived with mandates
to shelter in place, lockdowns of various sorts, working from
home and increasing needs to connect virtually. In addition,
we have witnessed the ways in which the pandemic has affected
those around us personally and professionally, as well as its
effects nationally and internationally.
As a developmental scientist, I have been impressed by
the growing awareness of the lay public of how important
social connections are, the potential negative effects of
social isolation, as well as the link between social and/or
psychological health and physical health. Many of us are
involved in helping to assess the influence of the pandemic
on individuals contemporaneously. As developmental scientists
we are also acutely aware of the potential long-term
effects of the pandemic – and how this will differentially
influence children, adolescents, young, middle-aged and
older adults. Indeed, I am quite certain that none among us
will disagree that this point in time marks a historical event
that will indelibly influence the behavioral development of
every person currently alive. Even as I write those words,
I know they sound dramatic. Nevertheless, I believe them
to be true.
During these unprecedented times, there is much work to
do be done. Fortunately, as concerned citizens of both our own
countries and the world, and as experts in human behavior,
we have a great deal to offer. I believe we will be called upon
to identify, assess and potentially intervene to offset the most
negative effects of the pandemic. Never before has developmental
science seemed so relevant.
I urge you to be cautious and careful both with your own
health and those around you. I also urge you to contribute in any
way that seems appropriate to helping yourself and others cope
with these unprecedented times. And as they say on the airplane
. . . . put your own mask on before helping others . . . . translated
to ISSBD and the current times, please make sure you first
take care of yourself, and then reach out to help others as best
you can. Make adjustments to your life. Don’t expect more of
yourself than is humanly possible. Celebrate your successes.
Reach out to others for help and to help. Innovate. We will have
to be creative in order to get through this. And there will be years
ahead when our help will be needed to help ourselves and others
recover.
Let me also report a few adaptations ISSBD has made. Since
we had to postpone our 2020 biennial meeting in Rhodes until
2022, I invited each of our planned keynote speakers to deliver
virtual pandemic keynotes. As a result, we were able to broadcast
6 pandemic keynotes live:
Title: Multisystem Resilience for Children and Youth in Disaster:
Reflections in the Time of COVID-19
Speaker: Ann Masten, University of Minnesota, USA.
Title: Adolescents’ contributions to the needs of self and others:
Longitudinal brain and behavioural development and effects of
Covid-19
Speaker: Eveline Crone, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the
Netherlands.
Title: *Developmental Robotics for Language Learning, Trust
and Theory of Mind
Speaker: Angelo Cangelosi, University of Manchester and Alan
Turing Institute, UK.
Title: Challenges and Opportunities in the Aged Society
Speaker: Hiroko Akiyama, University of Tokyo, Japan.
Title: Young Children’s Imagination: Reality-Based or Fantastical?
Paul Harris, Harvard University, USA.
Title: Context and Research Capacity Enhancement in the Majority
World
Speaker: Kofi Marfo, Aga Khan University, South-Central Asia
& East Africa, and University of South Florida, USA.
Fortunately, this was a highly successful endeavor.
First, I am eternally grateful to these internationally distinguished
scholars for donating their time and expertise to this
effort. Second, I am pleased to report that an advantage of virtual
keynotes is that people who would not have been able to attend
the biennial meeting in Rhodes were able to hear the insightful
remarks of our invited speakers. Additionally, the keynotes
were recorded, with permission, and are available to an even
wider audience through the ISSBD website.
Further, we have and continue to explore new ways to offer
emerging scholars, most notably our Developing Countries Fellows
and our Jacobs Fellows, mentorship and guidance virtually.
Because we were unable to have the planned workshops
in Rhodes, a number of virtual meetings have been held to provide
advice and guidance on ongoing and/or planned projects.
If you have found any successful adaptation that you think
might be useful for ISSBD to adopt, please be sure to let me or
any other member of the Executive Committee know.
I hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy. After
these many long months, each of us has been touched by this
pandemic. I stand with you and urge you to join together. By
supporting one another I have no doubt that we will find the
strength to withstand this pandemic and emerge from it prepared
to advance the science of human development to the benefit
of all.
Warm regards,
Toni C. Antonucci