January 2020 Newsletter

Spotlight: Annie Davis, Cohort Seven Fellow

Annie Davis, Cohort Seven fellow, began her position as an Assistant Professor on the research track at the Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development in September 2019. In this role, she co-leads the research and evaluation efforts for the SAMHSA-funded Center of Excellence for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (IECMHC), recently awarded to Georgetown.

This role is an evolution of work and relationships from Annie’s time as a Doris Duke Fellow. Annie was invited to join the project team by her policy mentor, Dr. Deborah Perry. Annie’s dissertation work on a state-level IECMHC program evaluation provided relevant content knowledge and connections. In her current role, Annie takes a national capacity-building approach to advancing research and evaluation efforts to move the IECMHC field forward. From a research perspective, she is working to compile a database of state level IECMHC program evaluation data to use to answer questions of interest to the field using a broad, multi-state lens. She is working to support state- and local-level IECMHC evaluations by creating guidance for the Center of Excellence website as well as providing Technical Assistance. Additionally, Annie remains interested in a range of research related to young children’s well-being, including current projects related to implicit bias in early education as well as an integrated primary care program (HealthySteps).Annie continues to work with her Doris Duke small group on a manuscript, webinar, and policy product related to preschool expulsion.

In addition to her faculty position, Annie works part-time in a private practice with children and young adults presenting with a range of mental health difficulties. She has developed a specialty in early childhood treatment as well as the treatment of trauma. She is in the process of applying for licensure in the state of Maryland. She graduated with her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the Catholic University of America over the summer after completing her full-time clinical internship at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Looking back on the impact of the Doris Duke Fellowship program, Annie shared that it was a formative experience and represented a turning point for her during graduate school. Annie says, “A key part of the fellowship for me was seeing so many examples of how to be a researcher working on behalf of children in ways that I had not realized existed. I felt so inspired by my peers and mentors all doing such meaningful work with talent and passion, often cutting across sectors and integrating disciplines in non-traditional ways. Being a part of this group provides access to such a dynamic network that I still benefit from regularly, and in graduate school it gave me the confidence boost to undertake new challenges and dream bigger.”

Transitioned Aged Youth Special Interest Group

The transition-age foster youth special interest group (TAY SIG) is a group comprised largely of researchers interested in older adolescents and young adults in foster care. The group convenes each year for an all-day meeting before the Society of Social Work and Research (SSWR) conference to hear from speakers, learn about policy and practice updates, exchange ideas, and form research collaborations. The fourth annual TAY SIG meeting was hosted by the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. on January 15, 2020. Nate Okpych, Cohort Five fellow, and Colleen Cary Katz, Cohort Three fellow, co-organized this event along with Mark Courtney and Brenda Tully, a doctoral student at UCLA.

With a focus on incorporating youth and community voices into research, the day included three panels. The first featured Catherine Heath from the Children’s Bureau and Ryan Martin from the Senate Finance Committee discussing research partnerships and priorities. The second showcased three researchers (Michelle Munson, Antonio Garcia, and Elsa Falkenburger) who are engaged in projects that feature youth voice and partnerships with local organizations. The third panel featured foster care alumni who shared their priorities for future research and their experiences of being involved in research. The day ended with an opportunity for several attendees to get rapid, practical guidance on a current research project via a "lightening round" format. It also included planning around TAY SIG representation at an upcoming international meeting of researchers studying transition-age youth in care. Anyone who would like to join the TAY SIG list serve (to be invited to the 2021 TAY SIG in San Francisco and to be kept informed about other TAY SIG initiatives) can email Colleen Cary Katz at colleen.katz@hunter.cuny.edu.

Fellowships Small Group Presenting in Webinar Series

A Cohort Seven Small Group will be presenting a Working Framework for Research-Informed Legislation Prohibiting Preschool Expulsion and Suspension in an upcoming webinar series hosted by the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Cohort Seven fellows, Alysse Loomis, Annie Davis, and Yonah Drazen will provide an overview about the use of exclusionary discipline in early childhood education settings, the status of state-level legislation to prevent or limit the use of exclusionary discipline with preschool students, and offer suggestions for developing legislation informed by the latest available research evidence. The webinar will take place on Wednesday, February 5, 2020 from 2-3pm ET. Click here to register.

Fellows Updates:

Megan Feely, Cohort Three fellow, Kelley Fong, Cohort Six fellow, and Kerri Raissian, Cohort One fellow, presented at the Connecticut Data Collaborative. Their presentation was “A Paradigm Shift: Using Micro and Macro Data to Disrupt Norms” about how research uses different kinds of data (micro, macro, administrative, survey, etc.) to analyze or assess a problem. Their guiding example was thinking about the role poverty plays in child maltreatment and what role policy can play in mitigating the effects of financial hardship of children’s well-being.

Kaela Byers, Cohort Three fellow, and Researcher at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, has accepted a position as an Associate Research Professor at the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare. Kaela will transition to her new role beginning February 3, 2020, but will continue in a consulting role at Chapin Hall to help carry out the final phase of the Mitigating Toxic Stress project.

In her new role at KU, Kaela will conduct child maltreatment prevention and early childhood intervention research, including: Lead Evaluator of The Kansas Strong for Children and Families Project (Kansas Strong). Kansas Strong is a five-year cooperative agreement with the Children’s Bureau partnering with the Kansas Department for Children and Families, Kansas’ Court Improvement Program, and the private providers of foster care and family preservation services statewide to develop and evaluate strategies to strengthen the child welfare system and improve child and family outcomes.
Co-Investigator of the Kansas Family First Prevention Services Act Evaluation. This work will include statewide process and outcomes evaluations of prevention services for children and families in partnership with colleagues from the KU School of Social Welfare, the KU Center for Public Partnerships and Research, and prevention service programs across all regions of the state.

Jennifer Geiger, Cohort One fellow, and Nate Okpych, Cohort Five fellow received a $24,999 grant from the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to conduct a study examining the role of child welfare policy and programs in postsecondary education and employment among youth formerly in foster care.

Tova Walsh, Cohort One fellow, recently published two articles:

The first is in Pediatrics with a call to action to screen fathers for perinatal depression.
The second is in Midwifery about how prenatal care providers contribute to parents’ mental representations of their baby.

Whitney Rostad, Cohort Two fellow, recently published an article in Child Maltreatment about income tax credits and children in foster care. She also published a second article in Children and Youth Services Review on the impact of federal child tax credits on childhood injuries.

Yonah Drazen, Cohort Seven fellow, finished his PhD in December of 2019 and is a full-time researcher at the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he focuses on data visualization and translating research for wider audiences.

Sheridan Miyamoto, Cohort Three fellow, recently published a report on Rates and Risk Factors for Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Pennsylvania. She also received a grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency for Sexual Assault Forensic Examination Telehealth (SAFE-T) Hospital Partnership.

Wendy Ellis, Cohort Seven fellow, was funded by the CDC for a pilot project implementing her dissertation work on building resilience communities in five health departments across the country. This project consists of a systems model and metrics tracking ACEs and community adversity and will continue to expand into more local and state departments in 2020. This model has also been adopted in Washington State and children’s museums across the country to develop a curriculum and provide training in preventing and addressing ACEs.

Kerri Raissian, Cohort One fellow is one of the new co-directors for the Gun Violence Prevention Research Interest Group at UConn. Dr. Raissian states that “the gun violence epidemic in this country effects children and families and I am looking forward to pursuing research around this topic (and how we can disrupt this pattern), as well as linking my research with a larger community’s work and experience too.”

Upcoming Dates:

Doris Duke Fellowships Mid-Year-Meeting at The University of Maryland, School of Social Work: April 22 - April 24, 2020: Baltimore, MD