Dr Bernice Vania Mamauag
Research Director, Parenting Within the Social Welfare System in the Philippines
Dr Bernice Vania L. Mamauag is a Co-Investigator on the Parenting within the Social Welfare System in Philippines Study and an Assistant Professor in Psychology at the University of the Philippines Visayas. Her research work focuses on parenting and its association with child development outcomes, interventions for children and families at risk, and adolescent risk- taking.
In the past 6 years, Bernice has been part of the core group of Parenting for Lifelong Health Philippines which has culturally adapted and tested PLH Kids for low resource Filipino families. The adapted program, Masayang Pamilya para sa Batang Pilipino (MaPa, or Happy Family for the Filipino Child), is a group-based parenting program that encourages and empowers parents to practice positive parenting in order to strengthen their relationship with their children and reduce child maltreatment.
Her most recent publication focuses on the process of MaPa’s cultural adaptation and expounds on how the team ensured the cultural meaningfulness of the program for Filipino families. Her dissertation explored how MaPa significantly reduced harsh parenting and child maltreatment. Currently, Bernice is a research manager for PLH Philippines and will be joining the GPI as a Playful Parenting Future Leader Capacity Building Fellow.
