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Boston College School of Social Work Salem Professor in Global Practice Theresa Betancourt, an internationally recognized expert in war-related childhood trauma, was selected as the 2025 Paul Hoch Award winner by the American Psychopathology Association. Betancourt received the award at the association鈥檚 annual meeting, held March 5-8 in Boston.

The award honors a distinguished and currently active investigator who has produced significant, generative research in the area being highlighted at the APPA meeting. This year鈥檚 event, according to the organizers, offered commentary and discussion intended to help integrate 鈥渙ur current understanding of the diverse pathways from social factors to mental illness and what stands in the way of this understanding being fully utilized to improve the lives of patients and populations.鈥�

Betancourt, who joined 天美传媒appSSW in 2017, is director of the school鈥檚 Research Program on Children and Adversity.聽 Her two-decade study of children who were pulled into Sierra Leone鈥檚 bloody 10-year civil war has been cited as the most extensive examination of post-war intergenerational relationships since studies of Holocaust survivors. Her recently published book, Shadows Into Light: A Generation of Former Child Soldiers Comes of Age, offers a fresh perspective on the project, including stories of some of the children鈥攏ow into their adulthood鈥攚ho are trying to make new lives for themselves.

She has also undertaken projects in Rwanda, Uganda, India, Ethiopia, and the Russian Federation. Betancourt is currently involved in intervention studies to help promote early childhood development and prevent violence among families in extreme poverty in Rwanda, and works with refugees in Boston and in communities around the world.

Her self-devised child protection framework, SAFE, reflects basic and interrelated security needs and rights that are central to promoting child protection: Safety from harm; Access to basic needs such as food, shelter, and medical care; Family or connection to 鈥渁ttachment figures鈥�; and Education and economic security. The framework has been employed by Betancourt in India, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, and northern Uganda, as well as by other researchers in Haiti, Pakistan, and Lesotho.

As part of the award presentation at APPA, Betancourt also delivered the Hoch Award Address, 鈥淧romoting the Mental Health of Children, Youth, and Families Facing Adversity: Perspectives from Post-Conflict Sub-Saharan Africa to Families Resettling in the U.S.鈥�

Founded in 1910, APPA is devoted to the scientific investigation of disordered human behavior and its biological and psychosocial substrates. It seeks to identify future directions in psychopathology research through the sponsorship of an annual conference that features leading and cutting-edge presentations on a specific research topic.