January 2021 Newsletter

Fellow Spotlight: Kenneth Feder at the CDC

Kenneth Feder is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer for the Maryland Department of Health. Building on his academic training in Public Health and his experience turning research into action, he supports Maryland’s response to communicable disease outbreaks and emerging health threats.

As an EIS officer, Kenneth works on a number of different aspects of Maryland’s response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. He has coordinated a state and local joint response to more than 300 outbreaks of COVID-19 in high-risk settings, including hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living, independent living, correctional centers, group homes for adults with disabilities, residential treatment centers for adults with mental and substance use disorders, childcare centers, schools, and workplaces.

He wrote and disseminated Maryland’s guidelines for preventing and responding to outbreaks of COVID-19 in group homes for adults with intellectual disabilities. He also designed Maryland’s surveillance system for Multisystemic Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), a rare but serious condition that occurs in some children who have a history of infection with the virus that causes COVID-19, and served as the system’s first administrator. Prior to the pandemic, Kenneth coordinated Maryland’s response to an outbreak of lung injuries linked to use of vaping products. He also completed a CDC deployment to Ethiopia to support the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s response to resurgent cases of polio in Africa.

As a doctoral student, Kenneth’s research focused on the impact of the United States’ opioid epidemic in children. His published research is among the first to examine the unique treatment needs and barriers to care faced by adults with opioid use disorder who are raising children. His dissertation evaluated certain State drug-control policies designed to combat the harms of the opioid epidemic, finding they were effective at preventing overdose deaths, but not at preventing child-maltreatment; this despite the fact that other research has linked elevated maltreatment rates to elevated rates of opioid misuse.

Although his current work is not focused on child maltreatment, Kenneth says his participating in the Doris Duke Fellowship was still a turning point in his career: “The Fellowship changed my life. The support of the Fellowship allowed me to complete my doctoral training in public health. And the training the Fellowship provided in turning research into practice and policy helped me transition from academia into my role as a public health practitioner. While the present need to devote public health resources to the COVID-19 pandemic has taken me away from maltreatment prevention for the moment, in the long run I intend to take the practical skills I build in this response and return to the project of taking a public health approach to preventing violence against children.”

Center for Community Resilience Director Releases Annual Report

Wendy Ellis, a Doris Duke Fellow and Director of the Center for Community Resilience, released the Center’s first annual report. It captures the multi-year trajectory of the development and implementation of the Building Community Resilience (BCR) process and Community Resilience (CR) framework. CCR's mission is to inspire, support and sustain a national movement of communities working to address the root causes of childhood trauma, foster equity, and build community resilience.

The report features:

a letter from the Director;
insights into the progress of their signature programs (Building Community Resilience Collaborative and Resilience Catalysts in Public Health);
impacts from their Policy Lab's efforts to build resilience through policy and advocacy;
a look at their new Truth & Reconciliation pilot initiative; and
an overview of available tools and resources borne from CCR and its partner networks.

Fellow in the News

Christina Padilla, Research Scientist at Child Trends, recently co-authored a brief and was interviewed by NBC regarding her and her colleagues’ research findings that Latino and Black children are two times more likely to endure multiple COVID-19 health and economic hardships.

Christina was quoted advocating for children and families by calling for more integrated services, and to remove barriers to access, in order for all children and families to receive the care and support they need.

Fellows Updates:

Natalia Orendain recently accepted a full-time Data Scientist position at University of California – San Francisco.

Byron Powell has two updates:

He recently published guidance for designing and conducting randomized implementation trials in BMJ.
He was named among the most highly cited researchers in the sciences by Clarivate Web of Science.

Lindsey Weil co-authored a book on trauma-informed assessment with children and adolescents. It is available for pre-sale and an associated discount.

Kerrie Ocasio has three new publications in a special issue of the Journal of Public Child Welfare, Volume 15, Issue 1 (2021) that focus on the impact of targeted permanency and post-permanency services on continued family stability, including:

Alysse Loomis was a guest on the Mentally Flexible podcast with Tom Parkes where she talked about her research related to trauma-informed training for preschool teachers.

Emily Bosk and Megan Feely have a new publication in Social Service Review on the tensions between actuarially based and clinical judgement in child welfare decision making.

Clinton Boyd, Jr. has three updates:

He was a guest on Bending the Arc, a podcast that explores the work of creating inclusive, equitable and racially just communities. He discussed his personal journey as a Black father, the undervaluing of Black men in general versus the idolizing of Black male athletes and entertainers, and his research including the Dads2Kids home visiting project. Listen on Apple Podcasts.
Under the leadership of his postdoc mentor, Dr. Anna Gassman-Pines, he is leading a Duke Bass Connections research project evaluating the Durham Expunction and Restoration (DEAR) program. The DEAR program is focused on restoring suspended or revoked drivers’ licenses for Durham County residents. Here’s a link to the project description: Justice Reform Efforts and Effects on Self-sufficiency (2021-2022).
He contributed to the intellectual development of a fatherhood report entitled, The Power of Fathers: A Concept Paper on Fatherhood, Father Engagement, and Early Childhood. Funded by the Irving Harris Foundation, the report provides an overview of the empirical and practical evidence that supports father engagement. It also offers recommendations for making father engagement a reality in all family-serving programs. The Father Engagement Committee of the Harris Professional Development Network produced the document.