Debra Pepler

York University · Department of Psychology

Objective We tested the effectiveness of a brief mindfulness-based intervention (bMBI) for emerging adults (EAs) experiencing anxious and depressive symptoms. Specifically, we examined: (1) whether there are improvements in mental health outcomes among participants at post-intervention and in a one-month follow-up, and (2) whether initial health va...

Methods: The systematic review and meta-analysis included 17 research articles from 1994 to 2022. Results were summarized by developmental periods. Results: Attachment insecurity was associated with CU traits across development (r = .17). This association was marginally stronger for high-risk samples (e.g., clinical, justice) and for continuous...

The first 6 years of life are when 90% of brain development occurs, setting the foundation for lifelong neurodevelopment. The field of infant and early childhood neurodevelopment has made marginal advancements since introduced in 1988. There remains a gap in knowledge around early neurodevelopmental domains and trajectories given that there are few...

Background: Public health measures (e.g., minimizing social interactions, social distancing, and mask wearing) have been implemented in Canada to reduce the transmission of COVID-19. Given that adolescents may be a high-risk demographic for spreading COVID-19, this study investigated adherence to and motivations for complying with public health mea...

Purpose Interventions focused on women – and mothers, in particular – who have experienced violence in relationships are critical to supporting both mothers and their children. Existing evaluation research on such interventions focuses almost exclusively on outcome evaluation. Yet, these interventions are often multifaceted, requiring strong theore...

D’importantes préoccupations ont été soulevées au sujet des répercussions sur la santé mentale de la maladie causée par le coronavirus (COVID-19) en raison de l’isolement, de l’anxiété et de l’augmentation des conflits familiaux suscités par la pandémie. Cette étude a pour but d’examiner la présence de signes cliniques de maladie mentale et la cons...

Mothercraft’s Breaking the Cycle is an early intervention program for substance-exposed children with neurodevelopmental vulnerabilities. Within three substance-exposed sibling groups (N = 8; 0–6 years), we 1) described longitudinal neurodevelopmental trajectories, 2) explored the balance of cross-domain cumulative risk and protection on neurodevel...

Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is a childhood disorder, commonly occurring in early school aged children with some symptoms becoming normative in adolescence (e.g., irritability, disagreeing). Affect dysregulation is a risk factor in the development of ODD. Affect regulation is nurtured within parent-child relationships, thus disruptions to at...

The current study evaluated factors that can help to account for the links between peer victimization and distress among 1039 adolescents. We assessed whether rejection sensitivity and self-esteem mediate the longitudinal associations between peer victimization and mental health problems. High school students completed a series of self-report quest...

Objective This systematic review synthesized evidence about the relationship between childhood bullying victimization and chronic pain, with a focus on the temporal nature of the relationship and moderating factors, such as the type and intensity of victimization. Method We included prospective cohort studies that examined the relationship between...

To mitigate the burden of COVID-19 on healthcare systems and to reduce infections and associated deaths, public health measures including physical distancing and mask-wearing have been recommended. We know little regarding important predictors of adherence and motivation to engage in public guidelines among at-risk populations, such as adolescents....

To account for the complex relationships and processes that constitute the phenomenon of bullying, it is critical to understand how students and their parents and teachers conceptualize traditional and cyberbullying. Qualitative data were drawn from a mixed methods longitudinal study on cyberbullying. Semi-structured interviews were held with Canad...

Prenatal substance exposure is a serious public health concern given that such exposure is associated with deficits across various neurodevelopmental domains. Mothercraft’s Breaking the Cycle (BTC) is a child maltreatment prevention and early intervention program in Canada for pregnant and parenting women who use substances and their children (0–6...

This study explored youths’ perceptions of the nature and dilemmas of being a bystander in cyberbullying. Although there are many benefits of peer interactions through social media, there are risks, including cyberbullying. Bystanders are integral in the dynamics and harm in both face-to-face and cyberbullying. Using a qualitative approach, authors...

Over the past decade child, youth, and family mental health agencies have begun to undertake research to understand best practice care. The current paper outlines a developmental-relational model of research co-creation to guide agencies and academic researchers in building effective collaborative research relationships. This process needs to be bo...

Purpose of the Review: The purpose of the current paper was to review and summarize the literature on ADHD and maltreatment over the past 10 years. Recent Findings: The majority of research on ADHD and exposure to maltreatment focuses on the high rates of comorbidity, including international studies from Asia, South America, North America, and Eur...

Background Community services that engage and service marginalized families can act as an important entry point for mothers and children experiencing interpersonal violence. The purpose of this study was to use an initiative that included training, implementation, and evaluation of an interpersonal violence intervention to understand changes in the...

Youth are sometimes victimized by their friends, but we know little about the nature of these relationships. Taking a dyadic approach, we studied relationships characterized by both friendship and aggression. Participants (952 middle schoolers; 50% female; 44% Latinx) nominated friends and aggressive perpetrators and victims. Using two analytic sam...

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in using co-creation approaches, with academics and partners working together to create research and interventions to achieve impact. Action research typically starts with the question ‘how can we improve this situation?’ and then co-creates knowledge with and not on or for people. This approach co...

Background Prenatal substance exposure is associated with neurodevelopmental deficits. Deficits are exacerbated by cumulative risks yet attenuated by cumulative protective factors. Cross-domain relative to intra-domain risk exposure presents more neurodevelopmental challenges. Cumulative risk and protection scores must be clinically and theoretical...

Interpersonal violence is a significant concern for families; thus interventions to support vulnerable mothers and children experiencing violence are essential. The purpose of this study was to present preliminary evaluation results from the national dissemination of an interpersonal violence intervention for mothers delivered in community-based pr...

Objective: There has been concern regarding the mental health impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and subsequent public health interventions due to isolation, anxiety around the pandemic, and increased conflict in the home. The purpose of this study was to explore current rates of mental health problems, COVID-19 related stress, substanc...

These data include clinically and theoretically grounded, cross-domain cumulative risk and protection measures. These measures were established for use with three sibling groups at Mothercraft's Breaking the Cycle (BTC), a child maltreatment prevention and early intervention program for substance using mothers and their children. These measures wer...

Community‐based projects that serve vulnerable families have the opportunity to identify and respond to interpersonal violence (IPV). We developed a readiness assessment tool to support selection of projects to participate in an initiative that involved implementing a community‐based IPV intervention for mothers. The overarching aim of the current...

Substance use among women is a major public health concern. This review article takes a developmental-relational approach to examine processes through which early relational trauma and violence in relationships may lead to substance use. We examine how early exposure to violence in relationships can impact neurological development, specifically thr...

From a developmental–relational framework, substance use in women can be understood as relating to early experiences of violence in relationships and across development. This article uses a developmental-relational approach to outline specific strategies that can be used by service providers and to guide interventions for women with substance use i...

Researcher–community partnerships are a necessary but not sufficient facet of effective research and evaluation with community-based projects and in clinical settings. This article describes two approaches that we have integrated into a multiyear, multiphase research and evaluation initiative supporting the health and well-being of vulnerable famil...

Substance use during pregnancy is associated with obstetrical and fetal complications. Though use of some substances is discontinued during pregnancy, use of others persists. Our goal was to characterize substance-specific use and patterns of use throughout pregnancy among vulnerable women who attended an early intervention program for women with s...

Background: Increasing evidence suggests an association between internalizing symptoms and violence against others. It remains unknown whether this link exists in the context of romantic relationships. In the current study, we tested whether anxiety and depression were associated over time with adolescent dating violence perpetration. Methods: The...

Peer victimization is a chronic stressor that occurs within the context of peer interactions and has been robustly associated with numerous negative psychological and social adjustment problems. Although increased frequency of peer victimization has been linked to psychosocial problems, few researchers have studied the role of duration and pervasiv...

Mothers who use substances need integrated, multi-sectoral intervention services to support substance use discontinuation. We explored mothers' service use at Breaking the Cycle, an early intervention and prevention program for pregnant and parenting women and their young children in Toronto, Canada. We conducted retrospective analyses of families'...

Cyberbullying is a significant problem in Canada, with high prevalence rates that have remained stable over the past decade (Boak et al. 2016; Craig et al. 2016). In this chapter, we discuss the prevalence of cyberbullying and cybervictimization in Canada, which ranges from 4.5% of university aged youth engaging in cyberbullying at any time (Cunnin...

Background: Substance use during pregnancy is a major public health concern, stemming from potential physical and psychosocial harms to both the mother and child. Purpose: To understand women's experiences using substances during pregnancy and the reasons that women continue and/or discontinue using substances. Methods: Focus groups were condu...

Adolescents face barriers to mental health services and value confidentiality when seeking help. Kids Help Phone (KHP) is Canada's only free and confidential service for adolescents seeking help over the Internet. 188 participants responded to questionnaires to determine the client characteristics in terms of gender, age, culture, generational stat...

Although there are numerous ethical guidelines for research with Indigenous communities, not all research is conducted in an ethical, culturally respectful, and effective way. To address this gap, we review four ethical frameworks for research with Indigenous Peoples in Canada. Drawing upon our experiences conducting a transformative social justice...

Bullying is a form of interpersonal trauma that impacts all parties involved, including the youth who witness the bullying. Some bystanders choose to intervene and defend the child being bullied. Defending may be positively associated with psychosocial difficulties because youth are becoming more involved in a traumatic event, or because youth may...

Objective: Young people in Canada prefer to use the Internet over face-to-face contact when seeking help for problems of daily living and mental health problems. Kids Help Phone (KHP) provides on-demand, anonymous help to young people via telephone and Live Chat technologies. Methods: Two hundred thirty-two phone clients and 230 Live Chat client...

Background: To compare a novel relationship-focused intervention (RFI) for maternal substance use, offered through ‘Breaking the Cycle (BTC)’, to standard integrated treatment (SIT). Although SIT focuses on the mother–child relationship tangentially by providing basic parenting information, RFI involves a central focus on promoting healthy maternal...

Background: While the online environment may promote important developmental and social benefits, it also enables the serious and rapidly growing issue of cyberbullying. Cyberbullying constitutes an increasing public health problem - victimized children and youth experience a range of health and mental health concerns, including emotional and psyc...

The science of psychology has never been more important to promote health and well-being across the life span. In this article, I describe the excitement and leaps forward that I have experienced in my research career by stepping sideways into clinical and community settings and learning to cocreate to ask both basic and applied questions. Closing...

The purpose of this article is to report on a study that explores the linkages among self-perception, perceptions of social support, and bullying involvement among children and youth, with a focus on how bullying victimization mediates the association of social support and self-perception. We employ Harter's multidimensional model of selfesteem (19...

This study examined patterns and predictors of early versus late match relationship beginnings involving youth and adult volunteer mentors participating in Canadian Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) community mentoring programs. Survival and multinomial logistic regression models were estimated on a sample of 845 youth approved for service from 20 me...

The current study explored online preventive coping (privacy settings) and reactive coping (reporting tools) among youth and how the use of these online safety tools related to the frequency of cybervictimization. Surveys were administered to youth in elementary, secondary, and post-secondary school. Results indicated that the prevalence of cybervi...

Longitudinal data from 746 adolescents in Toronto, Canada (54% females), was gathered in eight waves over seven years (1995 through 2001), beginning when the youths were 10 to 12 years old (mean age = 11.8, SD = 1.2 years). Five trajectories of substance use were identified: chronic-high, childhood onset-rapid high, childhood onset-moderate, adoles...

This study examined changes in outcomes for women in an outpatient, integrated substance use and parenting program in Toronto, Canada, and tested whether their self-reported treatment readiness at intake predicted changes in substance use and parenting outcomes from intake to 12 months after intake. Although there were improvements in both substanc...

Emotion socialization by close relationship partners plays a role in adolescent depression. In the current study, a microsocial approach was used to examine how adolescents’ emotions are socialized by their mothers and close friends in real time, and how these interpersonal emotion dynamics are related to adolescent depressive symptoms. Participant...

Objective: Developmental theory suggests romantic relationships present unique demands when adolescents transition from the interaction patterns of same-sex friendships to cross-gender interactions. A possible response is to incorporate behaviours of the other gender: girls adopting aggressive strategies and boys adopting affiliative ones. The goal...

In this study, we describe participant characteristics, conversation content, and program success of an online mentoring program for northern Canadian youth. We investigate the associations between demographics and program success. The profiles and conversations of students and mentors that participated in the program between 2009 and 2013 were ana...

Bullying victimization is commonly associated with anxiety among individuals with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and both bullying victimization and anxiety are more prevalent among youth with ASD than in the general population. We explored individual and contextual factors that relate to anxiety in adolescents and young adults with AS...

The study concerns the evaluation of treatment efficacy for childhood aggression using Recurrence Quantification Analysis, a nonlinear time-series analysis technique. The quantification of second-to-second dyadic interactions of parents and children during treatment sessions revealed the presence of characteristic fingerprints of phase-transitions...

Using a developmental-contextual framework, the present study investigated risk factors for same- and cross-gender sexual harassment victimization in 986 middle school students. Participants completed questionnaires in the fall and spring of the same school year so risk factors could be explored longitudinally. Results revealed that gender differen...

Objective This study examines the effect of an ecological and contextually responsive approach, during initial intake call, on engagement for multistressed families seeking child mental health services in an urban setting. Methods Using a randomized design, parents were allocated to phone Intake As Usual (IAU) or Enhanced Engagement Phone Intake (...

describe briefly the course of social-cognitive development in childhood, focusing mainly on the early stages of development / describe how the development of peer interaction and peer play serves both to reflect and possibly cause social-cognitive growth (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Although youth-led programs (YLP) have been successful in many areas of public health, youth leadership is rarely used in the prevention of peer aggression. A YLP to reduce bullying, sexual harassment, and dating aggression was compared experimentally with the board-mandated usual practice (UP). Four middle schools in an urban Canadian school divis...

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterized by difficulties with social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication, and the development and maintenance of interpersonal relationships. As a result, individuals with ASD are at an increased risk of bullying victimization, compared to typically developing peers. This paper reviews the litera...

Normative romantic development is theorized to progress through a series of stages: affiliative activities, group-based dating, and romantic relationships. The objectives of this research were threefold: empirically examine this progression of romantic stages during adolescence, determine normative and atypical trajectories, and examine links with...

The aim of this study was to compare ratings of mother-child relationship quality from diverse assessment perspectives. The quality of the mother-child relationship was rated in a sample of 34 mothers with substance-use difficulties and their children using the Emotional Availability Scales (EAS; Z. Biringen,), based on videotaped observation of a...

Graduate students may be particularly vulnerable to workplace bullying by their supervisors, given the competitive and individualistic nature of obtaining promotions in academia and the power differential inherent in the student–supervisor relationship. The purpose of the present study was to explore the prevalence and nature of workplace bullying...

Little is known about which processes explain the well-established link between maternal and child symptomatology. Interpersonal coping processes may be worth exploring, as depressed mothers have characteristic coping styles that may influence interactions with their children. We examined two interpersonal coping processes as potential factors expl...

We investigated the effectiveness treatment for substance abusing youth at an innovative residential program in Canada, the Pine River Institute (PRI). We explored (a) whether pretreatment problems were predicted by individual differences; (b) what predicted treatment progression; (c) the amount of improvement pre- to posttreatment; and (d) what pr...

Aggressive behavior has been considered a risk factor for future social maladjustment, particularly among males, and it is not until recently that researchers have recognized the developmental risks for aggressive females. The present study focuses on the continuity of female aggression from a life span perspective. Within a sample of approximately...

Objective: To determine whether adolescents’ use of aggressive media is a risk for dating violence victimization and perpetration, considering extensiveness across media types (TV, movies, music, magazines, Internet) and persistence over 3 years. Method: On three occasions, 1 year apart, 238 boys and 246 girls (mean age 15.06 years) with romantic p...

Although research on cyberbullying has recently begun to emerge, few researchers have used longitudinal data to explore this phenomenon in Canada. Using 1-year longitudinal data from the Health Behavior in School-Aged Children Study conducted by the World Health Organization, we investigated the prevalence and stability and risk factors associated...

The current study examined the mental health diagnostic profiles of infants and young children prenatally exposed to substances using the Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood, Revised (DC:0-3R) diagnostic system. Participants were 46 biological mother-infant dyads who were engaged in...

A Youth Outreach Worker (YOW) program was initiated to raise marginalized youth's awareness of available community services, engage them in community programs, and strengthen partnerships among the organizations that served them. This process evaluation included records of contacts and referrals for the first year of the program, 3 youth focus grou...

The aim of the current study was to explore bystander experiences during bullying episodes among children and youth attending a residential summer camp by investigating rates of witnessing and intervention, as well as individual motivations and characteristics associated with bystander intervention. The majority of children had witnessed bullying a...

Bullying is the use of power and aggression to control and distress another. In this paper, we review research to explore whether the lessons learned in bullying provide a stepping stone to aggressive behavior in dating relationships. We start by considering definitions and a relationship framework with which to understand both bullying and dating...

This study examined profiles of change in repeated mother-child interactions over the course of a 12 week treatment period for childhood aggression. The aim of this study was to investigate whether it was possible to detect the characteristic profile of change, typical for phase transitions, over the course of treatment, and whether this profile wa...

Adult criminality is best understood in the context of delinquent behavior in childhood and adolescence (Farrington 1991). The first predictive models of criminal behavior were created long ago, but in recent years these models have been refined and provide a great deal of information about the pathways leading to criminal behavior (Moffitt et al....

Background: Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are at risk for experiencing peer victimization (i.e., being bullied), as well as for a range of internalizing and externalizing mental health problems, particularly anxiety. Despite the negative mental health outcomes associated with victimization, however, some children who experience bull...

Background & Purpose: Children with disruptive behaviour disorders experience a rate of comorbid disorders as high as 70 80% in clinical populations yet minimal evidence exists to inform treatment (Doss & Weisz, 2006; Greene et al., 2002; Kazdin & Whitley, 2006). The prognostic trajectories for children with comorbid disorders include more negative...

The Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence Network (PREVNet) involves Canadian researchers and national organizations working to promote healthy relationships and prevent bullying. In this paper, we provide the rationale for establishing PREVNet, a description of the work of the network, and an assessment of the success of PREVNet. PREVNe...

Over the past 25 years, concern has been growing for children's bullying. We now recognize that bullying is wrong and hurtful. Research has fuelled a growing understanding that persistent bullying may be an indication of significant psycho-social problems. In this paper, we describe our longitudinal research on the development of bullying, examine...

In this article, the authors review research to identify bullying as a critical public health issue for Canada. Drawing from recent World Health Organization surveys, they examine the prevalence of Canadian children and youth involved in bullying others or being victimized. There is a strong association between involvement in bullying and health pr...

Few studies have investigated bullying experiences among children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD); however, preliminary research suggests that children with ASD are at greater risk for being bullied than typically developing peers. The aim of the current study was to build an understanding of bullying experiences among children with...

The Nature of Aggressive Girls' RelationshipsThe Link between Unhealthy Development and Unhealthy Parent–Daughter RelationshipsImplications for Prevention and Interventions to Promote Healthy DevelopmentConclusion References