Title:
Associate Clinical Professor, Harvard Medical School
Organization:
Brazelton Touchpoints Center
Biography
A child psychiatrist, Dr. Sparrow’s care in the 1990s for children hospitalized for severe psychiatric disturbances, often associated with physical and sexual abuse, and for developmental delays aggravated by social and economic deprivation, prompted his interest in community-based prevention and health promotion. At the Brazelton Touchpoints Center, his work focuses on cultural adaptations of family support programs, organizational professional development, and aligning systems of care with community strengths and priorities, and has included collaborative consultation with the Harlem Children’s Zone and American Indian Early Head Start Programs among many others. He has lectured extensively nationally and internationally on related topics and has consulted to media programming for children and parents, including PBS Frontlines and Discovery Kids.
Co-author with Dr. T. Berry Brazelton of 8 books and a weekly New York Times Syndicate column, “Families Today,” Dr. Sparrow is also a contributing editor to Scholastic Services’ Parent and Child magazine. In 2006, he revised with Dr. Brazelton Touchpoints: Birth to Three, 2nd Edition and in 2010, co-edited Nurturing Children and Families: Building on the Legacy of T. B. Brazelton, a textbook on the ongoing generativity of Brazelton’s seminal research in a wide range of fields. Dr. Sparrow worked for several years as a preschool teacher and journalist in New York City prior to attending medical school.
Education
- BA Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut
- MD Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
