The Center for Youth Wellness (CYW), a San Francisco-based organization focused on addressing toxic stress and the study of adverse childhood experiences, is looking to add a vice president of applied and translational science.
The focus of the position “is on leading our teams to apply the biomedical mechanisms of toxic stress to improve the quality and efficacy of detection and mitigation of toxic stress in primary care,” said CEO and Founder Nadine Burke Harris, in an email announcing the job.
Nadine Burke Harris
The new vice president will also be tasked with connecting the clinical team’s work with CYW’s “Movement Building” team, which works to disseminate information about best practices in addressing toxic stress.
“What differentiates CYW from other organizations in this field is our unique ability to communicate evidence-based and scientifically rigorous messages to a broad range of audiences, from lay persons to the most specialized researcher, with authenticity, urgency and hopefulness,” Harris said.
The job search is limited to people with a medical degree and five years of research or clinical expertise in toxic stress.
CYW took root in April of 2007 as part of the Bayview Child Health Center, and the physical center opened the doors to its new building in 2014.
The focus on toxic stress as a byproduct of adverse childhood experiences (ACES) surfaced in a 2004 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which asked participants about their history with 10 different ACES. The study found that 64 percent of the adults reported experiencing at least one of the ten ACES. Of that subset, one-third of the 64 percent had experienced three or more ACES.
One of the study’s authors, Dr. Robert Anda, continues to speak now about how ACES can be incorporated into policy and practice. Harris’ CYW is one of the organizations on the cutting edge of that effort.
Click here to read The Imprint‘s 2016 interview with Harris.
