Myrna B. Shure, Ph.D, a developmental psychologist at Drexel University in Philadelphia, is the creator of a unique problem solving approach that teaches children from preschool through their teen years how to think, not what to think, in ways that help them solve problems with peers and adults. Her school-based violence prevention curriculum series, called I Can Problem Solve (ICPS) is currently being implemented nationwide, including several schools across the State of New Jersey. The New Jersey Governor's Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) committee has funded two New Jersey agencies to evaluate the impact of ICPS - the Hispanic Family Center in Camden, NJ and the Violence Institute of New Jersey, in collaboration with the Passaic Public Schools.

Dr. Shure is also the author of Raising a Thinking Child, Raising a Thinking Preteen, and Thinking Parent, Thinking Child for parents, as well as Raising a Thinking Child Workbook (available in English and Spanish) for educators who work with parents.

Her ICPS and Raising a Thinking Child programs have been shown to reduce and prevent early high-risk behaviors that predict later violence, substance abuse, unsafe sex and some forms of psychopatholgy - behaviors as aggression, inability to wait and cope with frustration, and poor peer relationships, as well as to enhance empathy and positive behaviors as concern for others and cooperation.

The ICPS approach has been recognized for 30 years of evidence-based research by several agencies including the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), the New Jersey Department of Education, the US Department of Education, the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP), the Center for the Study of Prevention of Violence (BluePrints), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the American Psychological Association, including the Psychology Matters initiative for research with valuable applications that make a difference in people's lives.