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Dr. Alvy, a child psychologist, is one of the nation's most
experienced and respected parenting authorities, and has been honored at
the White House for his work to enhance the status and effectiveness of
parents. In addition to being the Executive Director and Founder of the 35
year old, nonprofit Center for the Improvement of Child Caring (CICC) in
California, he is also the Founder and a member of the Advisory Board of
the National Effective Parenting Initiative (NEPI). The goals and services
of these organizations are directed at making it the birthright of every
child to be raised effectively by loving and skillful parents who receive
the best possible parenting education and support.
Dr. Alvy is a
prolific author of books and articles on parenting, child development, and
child abuse, as well as authoring and co-authoring parenting education
programs and seminars. His books include Parent
Training Today: A Social Necessity, one of the most comprehensive
and authoritative books ever written on parent training, Black
Parenting: Strategies for Training, a groundbreaking book of
research on African American parenting and implications for
culturally-specific parent training, The
Power of Positive Parenting, a brief guide for parents that some
readers see as being a "mini-bible" for parents, The
CICC Discovery Tool about educating parents about child
development and identifying and helping young children with special needs,
and Bringing
Parenting Education Into the Early Childhood Care and Education System
about a model approach for making this nationwide system
responsive to the education and training needs of parents. His most recent
book (2008) is considered to be the "manual that should come with every
child," The
Positive Parent: Raising Healthy, Happy and Successful Children, Birth
Through Adolescence.
The parenting education programs and
seminars that Dr. Alvy has authored and co-authored include the CICC's
trio of national model programs: Confident Parenting: Survival Skill
Training, Effective Black Parenting and Los Niños Bien Educados. The
latter two programs have become the most widely used culturally-specific
parenting skill-building programs in the United States.
His
expertise as a researcher and scientist has been acknowledged through
research and demonstration grants from a variety of federal government
agencies and from his being selected to serve on scientific review
committees. Dr. Alvy has been a Principal Investigator on research
projects sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health, the
National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention, as well as being Principal Investigator on the
research project funded by the First 5 LA Proposition 10 Commission to
further validate The CICC Discovery Tool.
Dr. Alvy has also
distinguished himself as a creator and director of numerous community
service projects to increase parental effectiveness and reduce child
abuse, drug abuse, juvenile delinquency, and school failure and gang
involvement. Projects that he has designed and directed have gained the
support of various state and local funding bodies, and the support of over
75 private foundations and corporations, including the Ford Foundation,
AT&T, Xerox, Annenberg, Mattel, Verizon and Hearst.
Dr. Alvy
was previously affiliated with Kedren Community Mental Health Center in
the Watts area of Los Angeles for seven years where he served as Director
of Children's Services, and with the Los Angeles Campus of the California
School of Professional Psychology for 17 years where he was a Professor
and Dean for Academic Affairs. He has also taught at other institutions,
including UCLA, the California State University at Los Angeles, and the
State University at Albany.
Dr. Alvy has received numerous awards
for his and CICC's accomplishments in improving the quality of child
rearing in America, including being honored in the White House in 1995 as
part of the First National Parent's Day Celebration, receiving the
Distinguished Alumni Award in 1997 from the State University of New York
at Albany, where he received his doctorate in Psychology, and earning the
"Illuminating the Way to the New Millennium Award" from the Parenting
Coalition International and the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention in
1999.
Dr. Alvy continues to be an advocate for children's rights
before government and civic bodies, and to appear on television and radio
programs on child, family and parent training issues. He also continues to
serve as a consultant and speaker/guest on these matters to community
groups, governmental agencies, corporations, news departments and film and
television companies.
He draws inspiration and support from his
wife, Mary, a special education and kindergarten teacher, and their two
daughters, who both graduated recently from the University of California
at Berkeley and were Phi Beta Kappa
students.
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