The Resilience & Recovery of Former Child Soldiers
What happens to children who experience the unimaginable? How do they build lives after war? And what can their stories teach us about resilience, recovery, and the power of human connection? Through a decades-long longitudinal study following former child soldiers in Sierra Leone from adolescence into adulthood, Dr. Theresa S. Betancourt has demonstrated how rigorous, ethically grounded research can illuminate pathways to resilience and inform interventions that honor cultural contexts while achieving meaningful impact. This event explores the long-term impact of war on child development, the ethics of cross-cultural trauma research, and how evidence-based interventions can support recovery in the most challenging circumstances.
This event is co-sponsored by the School of Public Health and Program in Public Health & Society. It is part of the WashU Ideas, Discourse, and Exploration (WIDE) Speaker Series.