Ray DeV Peters
Professor Emeritus
Department of Psychology
A.B., Dartmouth College, 1964
M.A., University of Waterloo, 1967
Ph.D., University of Waterloo, 1969
Research Interests
Dr. Peters is a Professor of Psychology at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. He has been involved in the field of child development and children's mental health research for over 35 years. His major research interests concern the promotion of children's well-being and the prevention of children's mental health problems.
As Research Director for the Better Beginnings, Better Futures Project, he heads a multidisciplinary group of universities, and local research teams in disadvantaged neighbourhoods across Ontario. The focus of this research is evaluating community-based programs which influence the development of young children and their families. Dr. Peters has been a Visiting Scientist at the Mental Health Division of the World Health Organization in Geneva, and the Social Learning Center in Eugene, OR. He has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Banff International Conference on Behavioural Science since 1981, and chaired the March 2003 meetings on "Effective Progress for Early Childhood Development."
He has also served as a member of the Expert Advisory Committee for the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, and is a member of the Directing Counsel for the Health Canada Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development.
Selected Publications
Peters, R. DeV. (2005). A community-based approach to promoting resilience in young children, their families, and their neighbourhoods. In Peters, R. DeV., Leadbeater, B., & McMahon, R.J. (Eds). Resilience in children, families and communities: Linking context to practice and policy (pp. 157-176). New York: Springer.
Herry, Y., Peters, R. DeV., & Arnold, R. (2004). Le project Partir d'un bon pas pour un avenir meilleur: ses effets à court terme auprès de la population de Cornwall. Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health.
Peters, R. DeV., Petrunka, K., & Arnold, R. (2003). The Better Beginnings, Better Futures Project. A universal, comprehensive, community-based prevention approach for primary school children and their families. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 32, 215-226.
Pancer, S.M., Nelson, G., Dearing, B., Dearing, S., Hayward, K., & Peters, R. DeV. (2003). Promoting wellness in families and children through community-based interventions: The Highfield Community Enrichment Project. In K. Kufeldt & B. McKenzie (Eds.). Child Welfare: Connecting research, policy, and practice (pp. 111-121). Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
Craig, W.M., & Peters, R. DeV. (2002). The mediating role of the peer group in early adolescence. In Wilms, D. (Ed.). Vulnerable Children: Findings from the Canadian Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth (pp., 317-327). Edmonton: University of Alberta Press.
McMahon, R.J., & Peters, R. DeV. (Eds) (2002). Children of Disordered Parents. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
Nelson, G., Prilleltensky, I., & Peters, R. DeV. (1999). Mental health promotion and the prevention of mental health problems. In Marshall, W. & Firestone, P. (Eds.), Abnormal Psychology. Scarborough, Ontario: Prentice Hall Canada.