David J. Schonfeld, MD, is a developmental-behavioral pediatrician and the Thelma and Jack Rubinstein Professor of Pediatrics and director of the Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics and the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

Dr. Schonfeld established the School Crisis Response Program in 1991, funded by national (Office of Victims of Crime), state, foundation (Graustein Memorial Fund and The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven) and community support.

The program was a collaboration of the Yale Child Study Center and community mental health professionals, law enforcement representatives and local and state educational agencies to help schools develop their capacity to meet students' and staff's safety and mental health needs at times of crisis and to provide technical assistance in resolving problems arising in specific crisis situations.

The program developed an organizational model for school crisis preparedness and response which was adopted by many schools over the past decade. The program has provided training to tens of thousands of school-related personnel in school systems throughout the country and abroad and has provided technical assistance in hundreds of school crisis events.

Between December 2001 and June 2004, Dr. Schonfeld consulted the New York City Department of Education to help optimize the infrastructure within the system for crisis preparedness and response and to provide training and technical assistance, which included a series of over 50 full-day workshops for approximately 4,000 staff members representing approximately 1,000 district and school-level crisis teams.

In addition, Dr. Schonfeld helped develop educational materials for school administrators, teachers and parents on teaching / talking with children about the events of 9-11, the first and second year anniversaries, war, death and other related topics. He also conducted a series of workshops for the New York City Department of Education on approaches to promote coping and resiliency in children in school settings.

Dr. Schonfeld was subcontracted by Milford Public Schools in Milford, Connecticut, under their US DOE Emergency Response and Crisis Management grant and was funded by the Japanese Ministry of Education to provide training in 2003 in Osaka and Tokyo to assist in the establishment of the National Mental Support Center for School Crisis in Japan.

Dr. Schonfeld served as a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) national Task Force on Terrorism from 2001-2004 and served as a co-editor for the AAP's Pediatric Terrorism and Disaster Preparedness Resource. He has authored articles, book chapters, and a handbook (published by ASCD – the national professional society for educators) on school crisis preparedness and has written and spoken extensively on the topic of pediatric bereavement.

In addition, Dr. Schonfeld has been actively engaged in school-based research, funded by NICHD, NIMH, NIDA, the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, William T. Grant Foundation and other foundations, involving children's understanding of and adjustment to serious illness and death and school-based interventions to promote adjustment and risk prevention. He is the current Chair of the Committee on Pediatric Research for the American Academy of Pediatrics and President of the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics (9/06-9/07).