the oil spill. Many of those parents also
developed addiction problems. “I’ve never
seen parental drug use like this; it is an
epidemic in this community,” she says.
But Callahan is helping to enhance
the lives of these children. She meets
quarterly with a local elementary school
psychologist and pediatrician to identify any additional services Head Start
children may need as they transition to
elementary school.
Teacher-parent relationships are also
improving, thanks to a workshop series
Callahan presented to teachers on how
subtle changes in their communication
style—like leading with praise—can
make parents more receptive to teachers’
suggestions for changes at home that can
improve learning at school.
“It’s wonderful to see what happens
when teachers start conversations with
‘Let me tell you two great things Billy
did today,’” Callahan says.
DAVID COSIO
GIVING PATIENTS CHOICE
IN THEIR PAIN CARE
People living with chronic pain fare better when they have access to an interprofessional approach
to treatment, research shows. As a psy-
chologist working with veterans, David
Cosio, PhD, worried that his patients
didn’t know about all the pain treatments
they could try or how they worked. That
led to an idea: Why not teach patients
about available treatments and let them
choose which they want to pursue?
After gaining support from other
health-care providers at the Jesse Brown
VA Medical Center in Chicago, Cosio
launched the hospital’s Pain Education
School in 2009, a year after finishing his
studies in clinical psychology at Ohio
University. Under the one-of-a-kind
program, veterans and their families can
attend weekly classes introducing 23
different pain care interventions that the
Department of Veterans Affairs or its
community partners offer, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, sleep hygiene,
medication management, physical therapy, nutrition and biofeedback.
“A lot of pain management is
self-management. I’d rather patients use
their energy or time toward something
they care about and are going to be con-
sistent with,” he says. “We’re empowering
them with the knowledge and support to
do these things.”
His preliminary data suggest that
veterans who participated in the classes
experienced less pain and fewer symp-
toms of depression, had learned more
about how to cope with their pain, and
were more likely to participate in their
own treatments.
The program is beginning to have
a broad impact. Physicians and other
providers say that the program has also
helped them learn about alternative pain
treatments. Two veterans’ outpatient
clinics are also using the program via
videoconferencing, and Cosio is talking
with other VA hospitals across the nation
interested in adopting it.
DARIA DIAKONOVA-CURTIS
FIGHTING HIV IN RUSSIA
Earlier this year, the head of Russia’s Federal AIDS Center said that the country had just registered its one-millionth AIDS patient,