Marie-Josée Letarte

Bio

By the end of my undergraduate studies, I had developed a passion for interventions with young children. I did my master’s degree on school readiness with a project that evaluated 4-year-old kindergartens and Passe-Partout programs in disadvantaged areas. I showed that parental involvement in these programs was fundamental to the children’s development, which was an enormous catalyst for me. Then, as a doctoral student, I became interested in the change processes of parents in the parenting skills training program These Incredible Years. I was of course involved in this research. But it was crucial for me to deliver the program to parents myself. So I went to Seattle to do a research and intervention internship with Carolyn Webster-Stratton and am now a trainer for this program throughout the Francophonie.

I had already been a student member of GRISE during my master’s program. As a researcher, I was very excited to join this dynamic research group that is committed to practice settings. My research projects are distinguished by their clinical nature since they all involve partnerships with practitioners. I am currently working on several research projects, all of which allow me to provide services to children indirectly, through their parent or teacher. I am therefore working under Axis 1 of Grise, which aims to foster the adjustment capacities of at-risk youth. In one project, we deploy These Incredible Years with parents who have a vulnerable child in terms of school readiness. In another project, the same program is offered to parents at their child’s daycare centre in a disadvantaged area. I am also proud to have contributed to the development of the TAMARIN kit, which provides a screening tool and preventive intervention sheets for preschool and elementary school teachers. I always hope that my projects will promote children’s immediate and future adjustment capacity.

See the team