Lenka Zoey Juricekova, MS

Research Interests:

Childhood psychological trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder, and resilience; Child – parent, child – health practitioner communication about trauma and coping; Childhood trauma and brain development

Bio:

Lenka Zoey Juríčeková is a Ph.D. candidate at Virginia Commonwealth University. She obtained her master‘s degree at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovak Republic, in special education, with a particular focus on counseling people with disabilities. She also graduated from Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic with degrees in psychology and journalism.

In 2011, she established and led a non-governmental organization titled Four-leaf, which supports families with children who have developmental disabilities. Lenka also worked as a psychosocial field worker in a crisis intervention team during which time she started focusing on work with children exposed to traumatic events such as serious accidents and the death of a friend or family member.

She wrote about psychosocial care and other related topics for Slovak daily journals. In 2013, she was nominated for a Slovak journalism prize on articles she wrote about children who survived the holocaust in World War II.

During her Ph.D. training, Lenka seeks to enhance her ability to work with and support children who have experienced traumatic events. She is interested in intervention in strengthening children coping abilities and prevention of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She is also interested in how communication between traumatized children and different professionals may enhance the children's ability to cope.

Education:

Undergraduate Education

• BS, Counseling for people with disabilities, Comenius University, Slovakia 2003

• BS, Psychology, Media studies and Journalism, Masaryk University, Czech Republic, 2013

Graduate Education

• MS, Comenius University, Slovakia 2007